


Son of the Western Sea

by Mac_Ceallach



Category: Celtic Mythology, Chinese Mythology, Japanese Mythology, Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: And that's just the first two chapters, As narrated by mythical creatures, Celtic Mythology & Folklore, Chinese Mythology & Folklore, Divine Politics, F/F, F/M, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, M/M, Mythology kitchen sink, Percy bouncing from mythology to mythology getting into trouble, The Olympians are not amused, The spread of Western Civilization, Wanderlust
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-13
Updated: 2014-06-03
Packaged: 2018-01-19 02:36:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 60,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1452343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mac_Ceallach/pseuds/Mac_Ceallach
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All myths are true.  Beyond the edge of Western Civilization lies the rest of the world.  After the Second Olympian War, a restless Percy Jackson sails for the horizon, and never stops.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Gods Abandon Us

**General Disclaimer** (applies to all chapters): Percy Jackson and the Olympians belongs to Rick Riordan and whomever he has given the rights to. I own nothing and am making no profit from this story. Although this is an AU after The Last Olympian, I will be using characters and situations from Heroes of Olympus and possibly The Kane Chronicles. Both series are also owned by Riordan, not me. The first two lines of dialogue are taken directly from page 373 of The Last Olympian. And it's my library's copy of The Last Olympian, so I don't even own that. Then Percy's fail turns epic, and the new stuff starts.

 **Religious disclaimer:** Unlike Riordan (and probably for this exact reason), I will be pulling in characters from the mythologies of active religions-in particular, Shinto and Hindu, and probably Taoist and Buddhist eventually. I have nothing but respect for these faiths, and this story is meant only to entertain. No offense to practitioners of any religion is intended.

Note on Percy's school year: When I was planning this, I thought Percy had finished his sophomore year at the end of TLO, and was going into his junior year, and had made my story's timeline accordingly. When I realized that he was beginning his sophomore year instead, I decided to leave it rather than do a lot of re-writing. So, Percy has 2 years of high school left at the start of the story, not 3.

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**_August 18. The day the Second Olympian War ended._ **

I brushed the cake off my hands. "When I was at the River Styx, turning invulnerable… Nico said I had to concentrate on one thing that kept me anchored to the world, that made me want to stay mortal."

Annabeth kept her eyes on the horizon. "Yeah?"

"Luke and I… we had the same-" She stiffened next to me, and I knew instantly that it had been the _absolute_ wrong thing to say right then. I'd seen her face when Luke asked her if he loved her and she'd had to tell him she didn't. I'd seen her face when we'd burned his shroud earlier today. I closed my eyes. Stupid, stupid, stupid…"Sorry."

"Yeah." She sounded resigned, and like she was trying not to laugh and not to cry at the same time. "You really are a seaweed brain, you know that, Percy?"

I swallowed. "Yeah."

"I…" She sighed, and didn't continue. I tried my best puppy-dog eyes. She glanced over at me and started laughing, so, maybe not so great, but she didn't have that slightly broken look anymore. Win?

She leaned over and pecked my cheek, then got up and started walking away. "Happy birthday, Kelp-head. And…" she turned around and winked. "Better luck next time."

After she left and I was done hitting my head on the Poseidon table repeatedly, Clarisse came up behind me.

"You know, Jackson…" and she switched to a Jack Sparrow accent, "If you were waiting for the opportune moment… that was it."

The canoe lake was all the way at the bottom of the hill. That did _not_ keep her dry.

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_I passed through the waves smoothly, following the call. I knew where I was, like I always had in the sea. I would be able to find this place again. I crested a ridge on the ocean floor, and saw her. Battered, broken, but she'd once had a beauty greater than Aphrodite._

_I fell in love._

I woke up.

I pulled on some khaki shorts and a shirt, stuffed Riptide in my pocket, and crept out of the cabin. The harpies didn't raise an alarm as I snuck over to the stables. Everyone was tired after yesterday, but I _needed_ to do this.

"Blackjack!" I hissed. "Wake up!"

 _Doughnuts?_ The black Pegasus snorted and sleepily blinked at me a couple of times. _Boss? What's going on?_

"I need to check on something. It's important. Can you give me a ride?"

_You kidding, boss? The last time we snuck out, we got wrapped up in vines._

"Mr. D's still on Olympus. He's with his wife. I really don't think he'll notice." My horse looked at me skeptically. Time for bribery. "And next time, we'll stop at the closest Dunkin' Doughnuts on the way."

_…Promise?_

"On the Styx. A dozen, your choice of fillings." Thunder boomed, signifying that the oath had been made.

_Wow. Where are we going?_

Ten minutes later, we'd snuck out of camp without any entanglements, heading out to sea. I was able to point him in the right direction, and another hour's flight at normal speed had gotten us to what I was pretty sure was the general area. I would need to be closer to the water to be any more accurate.

"I'm getting off here." I put a knee on his back and balanced my other foot on the connection between his wing and body, preparing to dive from a few hundred feet up.

_Hold the horse, boss. The ocean was at war yesterday, remember? I doubt your dad's taken care of all of Oceanus's monsters this fast._

I gave him a grin he couldn't see. "If I'm not back in half an hour… just wait longer."

I launched into a perfect swan dive- _much_ cooler than my belly-flop off the St. Louis Arch four years ago. I knew as soon as I passed through the surface that we hadn't come out far enough. I surfaced and waved at Blackjack so he'd know I hadn't been eaten on entry, then pointed east and dove again. I swam until I saw the ridge from my dream, and paused at the top.

A two-masted sailing ship rested on her side on the floor of the sea. There were cannonball holes all over and a gaping hole in on the left ( _port_ , some part of me whispered) side, below where the waterline would have been, so there wasn't much question about what had sunk her. I swam close enough to look inside, and saw the remnants of a big explosion. It looked like it had been the powder magazine, where the gunpowder was stored. A stray flame, a fire started in the heat of battle, and she would have been lost. The surviving crew would have been lucky if they'd managed to abandon ship in time; I knew from personal experience how fast a ship could sink, and how hard it was for a mortal to get away from one.

I touched her side, and words I'd never known before came into my mind. Words like _Baltimore clipper, topsail schooner, gaff rigging_. She was smaller than the _Queen Anne's Revenge_ ( _115 ft 6 inches_ , that same part of my soul told me), and built for speed. The eight twelve-pound cannons that lined each side said that she wasn't a trader. I knew, somehow, that she'd seen a lot of action. A pirate, or a maybe a privateer. The ship's flag was long gone, so I couldn't tell which, and there hadn't always been a lot of difference anyway.

I wandered around a bit below deck. What had once been the crew quarters were basically double rows of barnacle-covered hammocks and a barnacle-covered table. The entire ship was pretty covered, actually. I touched one of the hammocks, willing it dry, and the rope disintegrated, leaving a hammock-shaped crust of crustaceans behind. I decided not to do that again and just wandered around exploring the galley and food storage, poking my head into the closet-sized rooms that had to have been for the officers, and saying hi to the random fish that were beginning to swarm the boat to meet the son of Poseidon.

When I found the only locked hold, I just asked it to open, and the lock clicked like my dad was Hermes. Apparently, on sailing ships, I was the Prince of Thieves.

I did the same thing to one of the six small chests inside the hold, and then just kind of floated there gaping like an idiot for a bit. It looked like the ship had been heading home when she got in her final fight.

If they could help me find sunken treasure ships, I took back everything I'd ever said about my dreams.

Eventually I closed the chest, and locked it, and yes, I know that was probably pointless, and checked the others to find the same gold and silver coins. The other stuff in the hold looked like it had been spices; I pried open a small barrel and found a lot of water-logged cloves.

I finally remembered that Blackjack was waiting for me, and probably was really worried by now. He was right- the sea wasn't safe right now, even, or maybe especially, for a demigod son of Poseidon. I was just going to surface and call Blackjack, and come back for the chests later, but I couldn't stop remembering the feeling I'd had when I'd gotten on my first ship. I'd been worried about Grover, thought Tyson was dead, and had just been turned into a guinea pig, but it had still been the most complete I'd ever felt. I'd been doing something I was really good at, something I was _born_ to do. It had felt like my body had always been supposed to have extra spars and sails, and I'd just never figured out those parts were missing.

I should have just swum away, but I circled the ship again anyway. The damage was bad. Her hull was intact except for, you know, the cannonholes and the gaping hole on the port side, but I could tell that the explosion had cracked the keel. If the _Queen Anne's Revenge_ had felt like she was a part of my body, this felt like I'd broken my back. I didn't think that could be fixed.

I found the cracked part anyway. It was all still there, just… broken. I pulled on one side, trying to move the jagged parts back into contact. I wasn't even sure why.

"Come on," I muttered at my broken back. "What's the point of dreams if I can't do anything about them?"

This ship had been beautiful, once. Suddenly, more than anything else in the world, I wanted to see her sail again. I wanted her to be like the _Queen Anne's Revenge_ , which had been a part of me until she was destroyed by someone I refused to call my brother. I wanted us to soar through the waves for the first time in hundreds of years.

"Remember what you were," I begged her. I wasn't even sure what I was saying. "Just, please… _remember_!"

And the keel clicked back together, as easily as raising a sail.

I blinked at it. There wasn't even a scratch where it had been torn apart.

"Praise Poseidon. Seriously, Dad, thanks."

The keel was ok. The rest of it could be fixed, if I could get her back to Camp Half-Blood. I experimented with pulling the water out of the ship, but that just moved more water in to take its place. I couldn't create a vacuum. I needed to replace the water with air, and I didn't think there were enough bubbles in a square mile to give her enough lift to float to the surface.

I was four hundred feet deep. That was the closest air. And, as soon as I had the thought, I _reached_.

Bubbles formed by the waves at the surface started floating down. It wasn't enough. It would never be enough to float my ship, and so I extended my power to the water around us, and _twisted_. A waterspout formed at the surface and extended down to me as I gave a mental yell at all of the fish in the area to get out of the way.

I stood steady on dry ground, in the eye of the storm. My new ship stayed where she was as the water inside drained out. The water around us circled in a whirlpool that would have done Charybdis proud. Now, all I had to do was let it go without it crushing my ship.

All. Right. Like it was easy.

I'd already used a lot of energy making the whirlpool, and I'd fought a battle and a Titan Lord yesterday with only half a night's sleep since then. And my stamina blew. I still wasn't used to the effect the Styx had on my endurance. I was like a cheetah now; I could do fast, intense bursts of incredible energy, but I couldn't keep them up for long and I needed to recover in between. And right now, I was pretty low on recovery.

It didn't matter. I wouldn't let it matter. I held the thousands of tons of water moving around us steady, and slowly, slowly began to let the water at the bottom out of my control, and only made sure that none got back into my ship. As she began to rise, I asked her to float upright in the water, and climbed through the jagged hole as we rose.

As I climbed onto the deck, I let the waterspout collapse faster, until the water level was going up at a dozen feet a second and the ship finally breached onto the surface like a humpback whale. She hit with a jarring crash, and I winced and patted the main mast. "Sorry."

 _Boss! I thought you'd got eaten!_ Blackjack backwinged and landed gracefully on the deck, in between two cannons that had been held in place by chains bolted to the side of the ship. He looked around and snorted, stamping a back hoof. _Is this what you dragged us out here for? It's a wreck._

"She _was_ a wreck," I corrected, grinning. "She's mine now."

_I can see the inside from out here. There are bugs all over it. Even for a fixer-upper, this is ridiculous._

"They're barnacles. They come off." To demonstrate, I swiped my hand along the mast, willing the barnacles under my hand to let go. They did, and I had a clean segment of wood that would have taken some serious scrubbing if my father had been anyone else. "See?"

_You're going to have to do that with every inch of the ship. And how are we going to get it home? The sails are gone._

"I'll manage. Can you let Chiron know where I am?" The sun was rising, and I'd be missed from camp soon; I hoped they hadn't restarted cabin inspections already.

 _OK. I'll be back afterwards. Just in case you get swarmed by telekhines and need a getaway._ The Pegasus turned around and took a short run down the right (starboard) deck and from there to the air.

"Thanks, Blackjack!" I called after him, and then turned my attention to the water underneath us. The current shifted, turning west and tugging the drifting ship along with it. It was slow without the push from the wind, and would take all day, but I'd get her there.

Annabeth and I didn't actually talk much in the couple of weeks that were left in camp. By the time I'd brought my new ship into Long Island Sound and sunk her again off the beach of Camp Half-Blood, in an area deep enough that she wouldn't interfere with the triremes if they just avoided the masts sticking out of the water, Annabeth had had to go back to Olympus to talk with her mom and start surveying the area. She wasn't in camp much, and when she was it was mostly to get the plans for the new cabins settled. I gave her space; after our last conversation, I was a bit nervous about trying again. Did they make cue-cards in Ancient Greek for this type of thing?

Chiron had been understanding about my going AWOL, but he still wouldn't let me take Blackjack out for doughnuts until camp officially ended and the pegasus gave me a ride home. The first thing I'd done after getting back to camp at sunset was take a canoe, load up the treasure chests, and take them to Chiron to be inventoried. Once the Stoll brothers and the rest of Cabin 11 heard about sunken treasure in the Sound, it wouldn't take them long to find scuba gear.

"It's a considerable find, Percy," Chiron said, looking at a tarnished silver shilling. "Your ship was probably sunk in the War of 1812 or thereabouts, judging by the monarchs on the coins. I would recommend that we sell them gradually, as you need the money, to avoid flooding the market. The gold and silver has its own value, of course, but the coins themselves would be worth much more to collectors if we can get documentation verifying that they are legitimate."

"Great! Um, we?" I asked.

He smiled at me. "This is certainly a part of the aid I am expected to give to young demigods, Percy. I will show you the steps to take; if your dreams found you treasure once, they may do so again. It's one of the more pleasant uses of visions I've heard of. And believe me, after several thousand years, I've heard of many."

I shook my head. "It wasn't the money. It was the ship. I just… needed to find it. I don't think this will happen again."

"The ship?" he asked, losing his smile and looking at me contemplatively. "Did it call to you, or did you call to it?"

"What do you mean?" I asked, frowning. "She's just a ship. Like the _Queen Anne's Revenge_ \- I told you about that, right? She can't call anything."

"Ah. Yes, you did tell me. I had forgotten. And you were… thirteen? That's about the right age, I suppose." He sighed, looking very tired suddenly. Well, it had been a long couple of days, and he'd been hurt fighting his father's army. My sneaking out and coming back with a new project probably hadn't helped. "So your dreams helped you seek out a ship that came supplied with the means to repair it. Is that what you intend to do?"

"Yeah. This'll be enough money, right?"

"More than enough, I would say, particularly since you will do most of the work yourself and your power will aid you. You should have plenty left over for… whatever you intend to do."

I didn't ask why he'd assumed I'd be doing all of the work myself; it must have been obvious that I wasn't going to be letting anyone near my ship any time soon. Plus, it was underwater. "Nothing in particular. Just sail. I haven't seen any part of the world except when we went on quests. It might be nice to be able to actually take my time and visit the area."

"Sailing? Is that all?" His look grew stranger, like he was seeing me for the first time. I didn't know what he was trying to figure out- I was the same as I'd always been. The Styx hadn't changed that.

"Yeah. Just see what's out there. Do some exploring, you know?"

"Exploration," he sighed, lashing his tail in agitation. "Yes, I suppose it's finally time for it."

"Right- Kronos is gone, there's no prophecy except for that new one that might not come any time soon, and I'm still alive." I was free, for the first time in my life. "I'll take a couple of years to fix it up and head out when I've graduated from high school."

"I'm glad you intend to finish," he said, relaxing a bit. "It would be a shame to have peaked in your sophomore year."

I grinned at the reminder of my words to the gods yesterday morning. "Yeah, I'm still going. You don't mind my swinging by on the weekends, right?"

"You will always be welcome here, Percy. Please, always remember that." He looked at me earnestly until I nodded, a bit confused. He continued, "Though, if you will be in the area, would you be willing to teach the occasional class? We'll have many more campers this coming year than ever before, thanks to your efforts."

"Sure. Just let me know what I can do to help."

And that was that; I spent the next two weeks getting the barnacles off my ship (I needed a name, but everything I thought of seemed wrong) and helping collect new campers and get them settled. The most unusual part about it was the next time I saw Rachel- or rather, when she saw me.

I was at my table with Grover the morning I was supposed to head home, talking about his work organizing the satyrs to collect new campers, when our new Delphic Oracle marched over and sat across from me.

"What did you _do_?" She hissed. " _Everything_ I saw about you has changed. I don't know where you're _going_ anymore!"

I blinked at her. "Well, um, neither do I. Most people don't. And, hi, Rachel, how are you. Lovely day today, isn't it? How were your parents?"

"Shut it, Percy." She sighed, running her hands through her red hair. "Your future went… weird. I thought I knew what your next steps were going to be, and then I saw you just now and everything twisted. I don't know what happened."

"Maybe that's normal?" Grover suggested. "It's not like we can ask the former Oracle. Maybe the minor stuff changes unless there's an actual prophecy?"

"Maybe." The thought didn't make her look any happier. "Still, Percy, be careful, OK?"

"Yeah." I felt a cold chill. I couldn't help but remember that the last time she'd spoken to me, she'd been hinting about me and Annabeth. If that had changed…

The thought distracted me through the morning, and even a meeting with my dad while he was fishing for sea serpents couldn't quite drive it from my mind. Although the joke (?) about siblings next year did a pretty good job of it. It wasn't until after he was gone that I remembered that I'd meant to thank him in person for fixing the keel of my ship.

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_**September 18. One month after the Second Olympian War ended.** _

"And, enough about the ship, Percy. How's school going?" Annabeth asked around a mouthful of sandwich. She'd suggested we meet for a picnic in Central Park today; she was taking the afternoon off from Olympus and I'd told Blackjack I wouldn't need a ride to camp. She was dressed like she normally was, in shorts and an orange Camp Half-blood t-shirt, with her necklace around her neck. She looked stunning without needing any help from makeup or fancy clothing.

"Sorry," I grinned sheepishly. I had kind of been babbling and waving my hands, but to be fair, she'd been doing the same thing about the new palace on Olympus she was designing for her mom. "It's only been the first two weeks, but Paul's been helping me with English and History, and I think I'll be able to pass. Woodshop is fun, and Physics is… it's actually easy so far. I hated algebra even when my teachers weren't trying to kill me, but it gets better when you can see it being used, you know? And Pre-calculus isn't bad either."

"Well, maybe it's because you're a kinesthetic learner," Annabeth suggested, smirking.

"A what now?"

She was openly laughing at me now. "You learn best by doing stuff. And you've had so much experience with ballistics. 'A 70 kilogram demigod wearing 10 kilograms of armor and weapons ejects himself from Mount St. Helens at a speed of 300 meters per second. If he is 2,500 meters high initially and his launch angle is 80 degrees, how far away is Calypso's island?'"

"Ha. Ha. And the answer is 'none of the above'. She said Ogygia wasn't any place in the mortal world." I was pretty sure that was the first time she'd brought up Calypso on her own. "Anyway, school's going all right. For school. We can't all be geniuses."

"You've had your moments." She grinned at me, and for a second I was convinced that everything would work out, no matter what Rachel hadn't seen. Then she continued, "So do you think you'll want to study physics after high school? I'd thought it would be oceanography, or something else that would let you work in the sea a lot."

This would go over about as well as Luke going to Kronos, I could tell already. "I don't think I'm going to go to college. At least, not right away. Maybe someday."

"Oh. Too bad."

OK, she took that better than I expected.

Then she continued, "Are you sure? We're not at war anymore, so you'll probably be able to keep your grades decent, and admissions offices mostly look at SAT's, activities, and the grades from high school. Middle school grades don't really matter. You'd be able to get admitted somewhere, if that's what you're worried about."

Ouch.

"It's not." Though she was right, I probably would have been worried about getting in somewhere if I'd actually wanted to go. I'd changed schools more often than Aphrodite changed clothes. "I just don't want to go right into college. I want… do you remember when we were sailing in the Sea of Monsters, on Blackbeard's old ship?"

She grimaced. "Yes. I spent half the time seasick and the rest of it trying to forget about the Sirens."

I'd forgotten that. She'd turned the color of guacamole and had to go under the deck for the rest of the day. "Um, well. That's what I want to do. Only, without the quests and the danger. Just sail."

"Oh." She chewed on her sandwich for a bit, watching some kids play in the little playground across from us. Finally, she asked "Sail where? Just up and down the coast?"

"As far as I can. Around the world."

Her voice was quiet. "For how long?"

"I don't know. As long as I can. Until I have to stop or there's nothing left to see." I couldn't look at her. She didn't look at me. I finally broke the silence. "It won't be for a while. A lot can happen in two years. You said you'd like to see Greece. The Parthenon."

"At the St. Louis Arch." She smiled. It looked like it hurt. "I still can't believe you remembered that."

"It was one of the first things personal things I learned about you."

She was blinking a lot. "Do you remember what else I said?"

I couldn't make my voice anything more than a hoarse whisper. "That you wanted to create something that would last a thousand years."

"Yeah."

We watched the playground some more. I don't think she wanted to say what both of us were thinking. I know wild hellhounds couldn't have dragged the words from my mouth right then. Finally she broke the silence.

"You could make a living sailing. Give tours, yachting expeditions, stuff like that. You don't have to leave to spend your life on the water."

" _No_." She looked at me, surprised by my sharp tone. It had kind of sounded like I should be petting the ship and calling her 'my precious'.

"Sorry. But, no. I need… I need to be able to go where I want to. I can't explain it. It's just… I feel like I'm weightless, for the first time in my life. There was always the prophecy hanging over me even when I didn't know about it, and now I'm free, and I… I can't stay."

_Even for you._

She crumpled up the sandwich wrapper and drew her knees to her chest, hugging them. "Rebuilding Olympus… it's my dream, Percy."

"I know."

"I can't leave."

_Even for you._

I closed my eyes. "I know."

Neither of us said anything for a while. I didn't know where to go from here. We'd never been together, but this was a thousand times worse than the little 'I don't like you that way' speech I got from Rachel at Hestia's hearth. Annabeth had been a constant in my life since I was twelve. We'd fought everything from Medusa to Kronos together. I'd been willing to die to have the chance to live with her. And _I didn't know why that had changed_. I'd still die for her, but I couldn't stay still because of her.

So, all things considered, when Hermes showed up I don't think I'd ever been so relieved to see a god. And that included Hades at the head of his army.

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"Poor George and Martha," I said, trying hard to look like I was genuinely concerned about them. And I was, don't get me wrong, I do kind of like Hermes' snakes, but I was mostly relieved that I had a literally god-sent reason to stop thinking about my own pathetic problems. "This… Cacus is in Manhattan, you said?"

"Underground somewhere, if he's going by his old habits," Hermes nodded. If he noticed anything off about my performance, he didn't mention it, but he seemed more annoyed by his stolen caduceus and that Annabeth was there with me. Luke was still a touchy point for both of them, and they both kind of blamed each other. "You're resourceful. I'm sure you can figure out where. Getting it by five this evening would be great, so I can finish my deliveries."

"Sure, I'll do my best. See you at five. Annabeth, I'll catch up with you later, OK?" Yes, I was running away.

She didn't let me. "I'm coming too."

I winced. "I really don't think-"

"Percy. You're not going without me." Her grey eyes were narrowed and slightly puffy. I felt like the world's biggest jerk. "Besides, think of George and Marsha. They must be terrified."

"Wonderful," Hermes said, studying her pointedly. "The giant breaths fire. And do be mindful of the caduceus; it once turned a horrible tattletale named Battus to stone… but I'm sure you will both be careful. And of course you'll keep this as our little secret."

Styx. With friends like these… "Of course."

Four hours later, we had broken Annabeth's magic shield, been drenched in sewer water, destroyed most of the Meatpacking District, played a grabber-arm game with a ten-foot giant as the prize, and skeet-shot him with George and Martha's laser mode. Just another day as a demigod.

And the thing was… it really was. We still worked together incredibly. We'd tag-teamed Caucus like we'd rehearsed it, and when she'd gone for the crane and left me to distract the giant and grab Hermes' staff, I knew she wouldn't let me down. There were awkward bits, sure, but after everything we'd been through, we didn't let them affect us when it counted.

As we went to meet Hermes at Rockefeller Center, with George and Martha stuffed on sewer rats and comfortably sleeping, I turned to her and said desperately, "I don't want to lose this."

"You're an idiot, Percy." She gave me a half-smile. It was tired, but genuine. "I'm… I'm going to need some time. But we'll be OK."

"It's not you, it's me?" I offered, relaxing.

She sniffed. "Well, obviously. Come on, let's get this thing to Hermes before he decides we've been spreading gossip about his thief-god fail around New York."

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"So, that's it?" Gover asked, chewing on one of the aluminum cans I'd brought him for his birthday party. We were in Central Park again, and his girlfriend Juniper was dancing with the local tree nymphs nearby. It was the first time we'd seen each other since Annabeth and I had talked. She would have been here today too, but she had been planning a trip to see her dad for a while. "All the UST, and you just decide to not happen? You were, like, Aphrodite Cabin's favorite couple-to-be for a while there."

"It wasn't going to work. I'm not staying around. I know that already."

"Yeah… about that. I asked a couple of the naiads to look over your ship. They said it's in pretty bad shape. Are you sure about this?"

"I've never been more sure about anything in my life." We'd been empathy-linked for years; he could feel what I felt. He knew I was telling the truth. "I can fix her. As good as new, maybe better."

He baa'd contemplatively. "I asked the naiads to take a look because Annabeth Iris-messaged me. She was worried you'd been enchanted or something. She thought it might have been the ship."

I stiffened. I didn't know she'd talked to Grover before I had. "And?"

"As far as they can tell, it's just a ship. And whenever I reach out to you, I feel like heading for Canada to find new bits of wilderness. You're itchy. Something's different, yeah, but it's from you, not the ship. I told her that."

"Chiron asked pretty much the same thing, I think. In different words. He doesn't seem worried." I kind of wished I was under an enchantment. It would have made things simpler. I felt like I'd earned the happy ending everyone else wanted me to have.

He finished the can, then sighed and said, "Be careful, OK? There's a lot of stuff out there we haven't seen yet, and you won't have us as backup."

I grinned at him. I had good friends. "I will be."

At that point, Apollo showed up and interrupted Grover's birthday and our heart-to-heart talk to make us fetch his runaway mechanical backup singer for a concert in Olympus that night, and I wound up desperately hanging from a Times Square billboard without any pants on. (Long story.) But we got the automaton back where it was supposed to be, and gracefully ducked out of Apollo's reward of concert tickets.

If I'd known it would be the last time I'd see an Olympian god for years, I might have reconsidered, but… no, never mind, no I wouldn't have.

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_**August 17. Almost one year after the Second Olympian War ended.** _

"Remember those who fell, and know that they died as heroes," Chiron finished.

One by one, in no particular order, each cabin councilor came up and threw one flower into the evening campfire for each of their siblings that died fighting for the gods in the war, saying their name as they did. Silena's name was claimed by both Ares and Aphrodite, like her shroud had been when it was burned. Thalia had led the Hunters to camp for the memorial, and threw the flowers for Artemis's cabin. Chiron came forward again for the fallen Party Ponies. Grover threw in the crown of daisies he had been wearing and sobbed as he named each nymph and satyr that had fallen in the battle, while the spirits that normally remained in the woods looked on silently. Finally, Nico sat down after throwing Bianca's second flower in the fire- one for Artemis and one for Hades. I was the last councilor to stand.

I had no demigod siblings to mourn, and I was still the only camper in Cabin Three despite my father's joke last summer. But not all of the deaths had been said yet, and not all of the fallen had known who their parent was. For some of them, we only knew their names. For some of the rest, we didn't even know that. We'd done our best, though, and so I began throwing in the flowers for the demigods that had fought with the Titans.

"…Ethan Namakura." Ethan, who had died trying to fix his mistakes, and only wanted respect for his mother. I threw in a black-eyed susan, and followed it with a blue forget-me-not. For the last name, I'd had an unusually serious talk with Travis and Connor Stoll about who would throw the flower, and how many would be thrown. In the end, we had left him with the side he fought on. "Luke Castellan."

I looked around me. I wasn't great at speeches, but Chiron had insisted I say a few words, and Annabeth agreed. I had led them against Kronos, and although things had calmed down a lot, the halfbloods and nature spirits that had fought at the Battle of Manhattan still considered me a leader. The thought terrified me, but I tried not to let them down.

"We lost a lot of good people last year. On both sides. Some of us fought to preserve what we liked about Western Civilization. Some of us fought because we wanted to change the things we thought were unfair. If we hadn't fought, nothing would have lasted. And if we hadn't fought, nothing would have changed."

It hadn't been easy to integrate all of the new campers. A few of the members of the new cabins had been trying to kill us a few weeks before they came to camp. I'd been around more this year, and had been drawn into mediating a lot of the arguments. I had led the defense against Kronos's army and had knocked a lot of them out myself, but I had also made the deal that had given the new campers a home at Camp Half-Blood and given their parents thrones on Olympus. All of the former members of Kronos's army knew what I'd given up for the peace, and that even without Annabeth, I didn't regret my choice.

"It's been a hard year, but we've started rebuilding what got broken, and we've fixed some of what needed to be fixed. All we can do now is keep trying. The next time we see our brothers and sisters and cousins who died fighting for what they believed in, we need to be able to tell them about what we built out of their sacrifice, and make sure that they're proud of what they died for."

So many of the faces were new. Leo Valdez, in Hephaestus cabin, who had hunted down and repaired Beckendorf's bronze dragon less than a week after he'd gotten to camp, and then decided to give it wings. Piper McLean, who had volunteered for a quest to recover a stranded child of Hecate and who had promptly challenged for and won the position of Aphrodite Cabin's councilor when she got back. Clovis, the sleepy head of Hypnos's new cabin, who probably would have stayed unclaimed forever if he had come here before the war. They'd all found out who their godly parent was in their first week here, instead of having to wait for them to get around to noticing their kids. Yeah, it had been worth it.

"We can't forget," I finished. "We'll mourn, and we'll go on. We can't ever forget, but if we all keep working, we can make what we have better than what they had, and that will be the best memorial we could give them."

I turned and sat back down between Rachel and Grover, in front of where Annabeth was sitting with the rest of Cabin Six. She toed me in the back and gave me a grin of approval when I glanced back at her. "Not bad."

I mimed wiping my forehead in relief- she'd refused to help me write the speech, saying it was something that needed to be obviously from me. She had helped me memorize the list of the dead, though. Even with the names written in Greek it hadn't been easy.

"Thank you, Percy," Chiron said, coming forward one final time. He had been the stand-in director all year; Mr. D had been spending his time in Olympus. After the war, Zeus had halved his sentence, and was apparently also turning a blind eye to his extended conjugal visit. "As a final reminder, anyone who does not sign up to stay over the school year by noon tomorrow must have vacated their cabins by sunset, before the cleaning harpies come around. It would be a pity to end the summer on a sour note."

As the rest of the campers filed back to their cabins, Rachel, Annabeth, Grover, and I, along with some of the other friends Rachel had made in camp this summer, made our way to the newly-remodeled Oracle's Cave. It was appropriately spooky on the outside, but was actually a comfortable apartment with, as Apollo had suggested, an impressive entertainment deck with a large-screen TV in the game room. We had taken to spending the hour before curfew watching old movies and TV shows. Rachel's tastes tended to be artsy, but after _Casablanca_ , Clarisse had staged a revolution and demanded _Braveheart_ , and the choice rotation had continued.

As the opening credits of the current sci-fi series started, I nudged Grover and said, "I decided on a name."

_'Take my love, take my land,_

_Take me where I cannot stand,_

_I don't care, I'm still free._

_You can't take the sky from me.'_

"For your ship?" he guessed instantly, getting the attention of most of the people around us. I'd made a lot of progress this year, although I still wasn't ready to sail. The holes were gone- all of them. When I'd brought the new pieces of wood to replace the parts that were missing, all I had to do to add them was cut them to the right length and slot the wood into missing places. My ship _wanted_ to be whole. It didn't matter that the boards were straight and the hull was curved- the boards bent at my request and fused with the old wood, until the only way you could tell that she had been injured was the color difference between the boards, and even that had gone away when I tarred and painted it. (Using a water-based paint while painting a ship's hull underwater had been surreal. I just applied a coat and asked it to dry.)

_'Take me out to the black,_

_Tell them I ain't comin' back_

_Burn the land and boil the sea,_

_You can't take the sky from me.'_

"Yeah. I'm bringing her to the surface tomorrow. I need a name, and I really like this song." She didn't have sails yet and I needed to haul over the new rope that had just been delivered, but she was basically seaworthy. I was going to spend my senior year making her livable. Annabeth had already offered to redesign the interior layout, Leo and Nyssa from Hephaestus Cabin were going to be helping me install modern plumbing and electric wiring, and Lacy and a couple of her siblings from Aphrodite Cabin wanted to do the interior decorating although I was a bit nervous about what they'd come up with.

_'There's no place I can be_

_Since I found Serenity,_

_You can't take the sky from me.'_

Clarisse, on Grover's other side, looked at me incredulously. "You're naming it 'Serenity'? _You_?"

"Not _Serenity_." Though I'd considered it. " _Firefly_."

" 'Take my love, take my land,' huh?" Grover glanced at Annabeth, who didn't look back at us from where she was making the popcorn. Things between me and Annabeth were pretty much like they'd always been, but with an extra bit of 'what-if'. I was just glad I hadn't broken us. "I like it."

"Yeah." It had taken me long enough to decide on a name. "Me too."

After the episode was finished, Rachel asked me to hang back to clean up while everyone else attempted to avoid the harpies. The campfire had taken longer than usual, and we'd gone a bit past lights out. As Clarisse's battle-cry and Leo's flames lit up the night air outside, Rachel handed me a wrapped box and said, "My dad's car is coming early tomorrow, so I won't be able to give this to you. Happy birthday."

"Thanks!" On unwrapping it, though, it turned out to be the latest smartphone and a hands-free headset. A really nice present, for anyone but a demigod. "Um, thanks, Rachel, but…"

"It tells monsters where the half-blood buffet is, yeah, I didn't forget," the redhead interrupted. "But, seriously, Percy, how many armies have you taken down singlehandedly?"

Two. One down in the Underworld and one on the Williamsburg Bridge. "Still, I'm not going to draw monsters home on purpose. That happens too often anyway."

"You can keep it turned off when you're at home, and you probably should, like Annabeth does," she agreed, "but I've just got a hunch that you're going to need it. It's got an international calling plan that's connected to my family one. My dad won't notice."

I put the headset on and pulled Riptide out of my pocket, trying a couple of sword swings. I'd probably be able to fight while talking- she'd put some thought into this. And I wasn't about to ignore the Delphic Oracle when she told me I'd need something. "Why wouldn't an Iris message be enough?"

She shrugged. "Maybe you'll be out of drachmas? I don't know. But call me if you need to."

"I'll call you even when I don't need to," I promised. "My mom, too. I know she's been nervous about letting me go off on my own- having a way for me to keep in touch more regularly might help. Or maybe make her worried more about me fighting a thousand monsters each time we talk, but it'll be something she's used to worrying about."

"Thanks," she smiled at the promise to keep in touch, even though I'd been planning on it anyway with IM's. "And there's something else, too… would you come to my Homecoming dance with me?"

I wasn't sure I'd heard her right. Hadn't we settled that a year ago? "Uh… don't you have a divine restriction on dating?"

"On sex, technically, but yeah, romance isn't exactly encouraged." She ran a hand through her hair, flopping down on her couch. "And, my mom doesn't really get that, and it's not like I can explain about being the Delphic Oracle. She still thinks I'm hung up on you. And Clarion is an all-girls academy, so you wouldn't think it would be a problem there, but we've got a boy's school that we have events like Homecoming and proms with, and I've turned down enough of the guys from there that someone started rumors saying I'm a lesbian. And that's made the locker room kind of uncomfortable."

"Is anyone bullying you?" I wasn't sure what I could do about it if they were, but she was at that school in the first place because she'd tried to help us at the battle to defend Olympus last year. Otherwise she'd still be at Goode with me.

"I've got my brush if anyone tried," she grinned at me. Yeah, anyone who'd hit a Titan with a hairbrush wouldn't have any problem with high-school girls. "And I don't like relying on it much, but it's the kind of place where everyone keeps track of the fact that my family could buy and sell theirs. So, nothing physical, and nothing really to my face, but it would just be easier if I had a boyfriend to point at. You know about my oath, and I trust you not to try anything, and you're not planning on dating anyone else before you leave."

I shrugged. "If it'll help, sure. Just let me know when I'll need to be there, and I'll get Blackjack to bring me to Connecticut."

Later that evening, as I lay in my bunk after letting the watch harpies break their claws on my Styx-protected skin on the way back to the cabin, I realized that I was sort-of dating Rachel.

"Well," I said into the darkness, "She probably won't expect me to remember our anniversary."

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_**August 18, the next morning. Exactly one year after the Second Olympian War ended.** _

"Dude, you didn't say you had _artillery_ ," Leo Valdez yelled as he and Jake Mason swooped by on Festus. The golden mechanical dragon backwinged and grabbed the twelve-pounder that was dangling from the new ropes I'd let snake up the mainmast right after the ship had breached the surface half an hour ago.

"Yes I did!" I yelled back. "That's why you're here, remember?" A rope lashed out and plucked him off the dragon, and Jake laughed and waved as Festus headed back to shore. I grabbed the same rope that was coiled around Leo and let it lower both of us to the deck. When we were safely down, he continued the conversation as though he hadn't just been snatched off a moving automaton from a hundred feet up.

"Yeah, but I was picturing hunks of useless metal. These aren't even that rusted. They're moving. And how can you direct everything in the ship even without looking at it? It's creepy."

"Says the firebender," I answered cheerfully, and made the cannon he'd just sat on come loose from the chains that had fixed it to the deck for two centuries and roll over to the mast. He jumped off and flipped me the bird.

"Waterbending doesn't do this. And, if they can still work, why're you getting rid of the cannons? What if you're attacked by monsters and need weapons?"

"You're kidding, right? Where would I get the shot and gunpowder for them? And why would I want to? I'll be travelling alone, and I can't levitate the cannonballs and powder into them during a fight." Yes, I'd tried. Ship control powers didn't extend that far, unfortunately.

Leo frowned, and went to the cannons on the other side of the deck as I rode the next one back up to the top yardarm of the main mast. He looked at the cannons I was still releasing and moving to gather around the main mast, then pulled out some sketch paper and a pencil from his tool belt of holding and started drawing. (And he was right- I hadn't realized how much I could sense about what was happening on the _Firefly_ until someone else was on board, but the fact that I knew exactly what he was doing when I was a hundred feet up and watching Festus come back was kind of creepy.)

When Jake had successfully grabbed the second cannon and was heading to shore, I swung myself back on deck and turned to catch the sketch pad I had felt Leo throw at the back of my head. "What am I looking at?"

"Revolvers!" He'd started taking measurements of one of the cannon barrels. "Some Greek fire as the fuel and projectile, a revolving mechanism in the body to reload, and you're armed!"

" _Greek fire?_ Leo, she's been sunk by her own magazine once already!"

He looked at me oddly, and then set himself on fire.

This wasn't as unusual as it sounds- his unexpectedly revealing that ability had given Hephaestus Cabin the victory in his first Capture-the-Flag game- but now he was doing it on _my ship_.

 _"Are you insane?"_ I immediately doused him with what seemed like half the water in the Sound.

He sputtered, pushing his dark hair out of his eyes. He looked like a drowned rat. "What was that for?"

"What was- you tried to set my ship on fire!"

"Yeah, 'tried' being the key word there," he muttered. "You kind of proved my point, Aquaman. No fire's going to start on this ship without you stopping it."

For a normal fire, sure, I'd sense it, but… "Seawater doesn't put out Greek fire. They use it for light in my dad's palace."

"Yeah, but I didn't even singe the deck, and I _was_ trying." He pointed down, and I looked. He was right- the deck was unmarked. "Look, just let Uncle Leo show you how it's going to work, OK?"

He took a hold of a dangling rope, and his hand lit up. The flames traveled along the rope and up to the mast, but he was right- the fire didn't actually burn anything. It was just there, making that part of me feel warm. I took a spare page out of the sketchpad and held it up to the rope, and the paper caught fire like normal. Leo let the fire in his hand die, and the fire on the rope and mast disappeared along with it. The fire on the paper stayed lit, because it had fuel of its own. I let it fall to the deck, and could feel the paper land, and knew that this real fire wouldn't burn anything either. It wouldn't burn anything because I didn't want the _Firefly_ to be damaged.

"Are you satisfied, or should we actually haul some of the green stuff out here? I know burning, man. She's fireproof until you decide not to be."

I swallowed. "I didn't know I could do that."

"And now you do, because I'm brilliant. You're welcome. Mind drying me off, or do I need to set myself on fire again?" He balled his outstretched hand, and I gave him a fist-bump that left him dry and unsalted. "So, the cannons?"

I began to grin. I liked the thought of extremely destructive guns I could control with my mind as much as the next teenage boy. "Yeah, go nuts, and you can keep some. I don't need sixteen. They take up a lot of room."

His grin matched mine. "How many?"

"Half and half?"

"Works for me!" He whistled, and Festus roared as Jake circled above us. I hurriedly hauled the third cannon up the mast, without bothering to ride up with it this time.

"Are you going to try to go on a quest this year?" I asked, watching them fly away. It was common knowledge among the counselors that Jake wanted Leo as his successor as Cabin Nine's leader, and that he'd almost handed the position over when Leo had fixed the out-of-control dragon last winter after Jake had been seriously injured trying. He probably would have succeeded if Leo had had even one quest under his belt, but Chiron hadn't wanted a complete rookie, even one as powerful as Leo, to replace a war veteran as a counselor. Jake had kept the position, but was heading out for his first semester at NYU today and had made Leo his deputy.

"Yeah. Chiron's already told me I'm leading the retrieval mission, the next time we get a distress call." He ran a hand through his hair and looked even twitchier than usual. "Do you want to come along?"

"Not if you're riding the dragon." With the near-invulnerability from the Styx in addition to the Big Three heritage, I was the most powerful demigod the camp had ever had, and I liked using that to help out. Chiron had needed to have more than one discussion with me about when to step back and let other people prove themselves. Most of the 'quests' we got sent on these days were calls from Grover's satyrs, and any team of trained demigods was usually enough to take care of it. The flight restriction was true and convenient, and I didn't really want to give Leo the same talk I'd gotten from Chiron at the Battle of Manhattan last year.

"Hey, what do you have against Festus? He's helping you out!" Leo usually talked like he thought the dragon was alive. I had the _Firefly_ , though, so I got where he was coming from. Leo called my ship 'she', and I returned the favor.

"Yeah, I know, but I can't ride him. Zeus doesn't let his brothers' kids fly." I could see that Leo was about to point out that I'd been giving his cabin flying lessons since before he'd come to camp, and added, "Pegasi don't count. Horses are neutral territory. Poseidon created them, and the original Pegasus was Poseidon's son. If I try flying on anything else I get shot out of the sky."

That distracted him. ADHD at its finest. "Wait, so all of the pegasi in camp are your grandnephews?"

"Technically. You learn to limit your family." Tyson was still the only person I called my brother. "You'll do fine. Don't try to pick your team yet. Wait until you get the quest."

"Yeah. Thanks." He watched as his distant dragon settled on Fireworks Beach and left the cannon with the others; when we were finished I'd find out if I could still make them roll when they were off the ship.

Actually... I concentrated, and the cannon Jake had just delivered turned around and trundled towards the mess hall. "It still works."

"Huh?" Leo pulled a set of binoculars out of his belt and focused on the three cannons that were now forming a little parade. A few of the full-time campers that had come to watch me bring up the ship jogged after them; a younger demigoddess jumped on the one in front, and two of the other kids followed her example. "Huh. Not bad."

"I wasn't sure I could move them. I could sail the _Queen Anne's Revenge_ from a distance, but it might have been different for a part that had gotten separated." I closed my eyes and focused as they circled the mess hall and I could no longer see them. This was only working because I knew the path really well; I had no sight from the cannons, just a sense of touch. The girl in front, one of the new kids in Athena's cabin, I think, grabbed the trailing chains when I hesitated and started directing the cannon like a horse, steering it through what I hoped was the mess hall tables. Above me, Jake and Festus grabbed the next cannon.

"So, you'll be armed, and I can start making plans for the wiring now that I've seen the ship. I know Grover thinks you should go solar all the way, but if that's what you want you'll need some serious batteries because it would suck if your heaters didn't work in winter because you hadn't seen the sun for a week, and you should probably still have a small generator just in case. For the plumbing, you can purify water yourself, right? So we won't need to build a filter system, but-"

I focused on my cannons and let Leo's chatter drift over me as he went below deck to take measurements. He wasn't really looking for comments, just a listening ear. We were on the ship for maybe another hour, until Leo finished and signaled for the now-riderless hovering dragon to pick him up. I hauled us both back up the mast one last time, and reversed the maneuver that had grabbed him off the dragon's back. Leo waved goodbye as the rope uncoiled from his chest, and I swung myself down the rope and back onto the deck. Or at least, that was the plan.

Bronze claws curled around me from behind, trapping my arms against my chest, and I was suddenly flying. I'm not ashamed to admit that I panicked a bit. (OK, a lot.) "Did you think I was _joking_ , Leo? Let me go!"

"I'm trying! He thinks you're another cannon! It's the control disk- it's been acting up, and I'm not finished with the replacement!" He sounded panicked too. Styx, this wasn't a practical joke. And I had no leverage when I tried to push the claws open- I was stuck.

I closed my eyes and tried really hard not to pray. I knew exactly who would hear me.

We were descending towards Fireworks Beach when Leo yelled, "Got it!" and Festus, instead of opening his claws, swooped higher and cut over the forest towards the cabins. "No, sorry, wrong wire."

"Leo!"

"I said I was sorry! But, hey, no lightning yet, right? Live in the moment!"

We finally landed on the main quad, and the adrenaline-hyped part of me that kept track of all the tiny details on the battlefield noticed that my cannons (and they would always be mine, even if I left half of them to guard the camp) had been divided between Hephaestus, Ares, and Athena's cabins according to the rider. Festus finally let me go, and I fell to my knees and almost kissed the ground.

"Hey, we're alive!" Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Leo Valdez, Master of the Obvious.

"We must not have been flying high enough." I got up and managed to get my knees to stop trembling. "I used Daedalus' wings a couple of summers ago, and he didn't try to kill me. A higher altitude would have been bad."

"Or maybe he's just not paying attention." Leo's voice was slightly bitter as he yanked a couple of wires out of the dragon. "Maybe none of them are. I've never even seen that D guy, and he's supposed to work here."

I knew it wasn't Mr. D or Zeus that he was angry at. All of the kids at camp had been claimed, but for the newcomers, that was where it had ended. The Olympians, and even the minor gods, hadn't been in touch. I was enjoying the peace and quiet, but I'd also met my dad, and knew he cared about me. Leo didn't have that.

"Annabeth says the gods are still pretty busy. It wasn't just Olympus. Typhon did a lot of damage and the ocean got trashed."

"Sure." He wasn't buying the excuse any more than I was, and changed the subject. "So, since you can ride Festus, want to go on a quest?"

"Leo? You don't need me. Suck it up and lead."

Yeah, I was no Chiron, but it got the point across.

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"Ready to head out, Blackjack?" Most of my stuff was staying at camp, since I was still going to be spending at least one night a week here. I was only carrying a backpack on my back and an apple in my hand.

 _Always, boss._ The black pegasus chomped on the apple cheerfully while I mounted. In a minute, we were airborne and doing a flyover of the Sound before turning towards New York.

_Your wreck's looking better. You got the bugs off._

"Yeah. She's going to be beautiful when I raise the sails."

_When are you going to leave?_

"After camp next year, probably. Mom doesn't want me to leave before I'm eighteen. I should be able to get the rest of the work done this school year, and I'll make some short trips during the summer."

 _Oh._ We flew in silence for a few minutes, and then Blackjack asked,

_Got room for one more? I don't think a pegasus has ever gone around the world before. It might be fun._

I stiffened in surprise, and he felt it and snorted. _What, did you think I'd let you go off without me?_

"I don't know how long I'll be gone," I warned him. "Or how often I'll be able to visit New York. The lady pegasi would miss you in the spring."

 _Absence makes the heart grow fonder,_ he replied smugly. _And a far-flying pegasus is hot._

"Then… yeah." I swallowed, touched. "Yeah, I've got room for one more. I'll build a stall for you on deck when we head back next weekend."

_A stall? Who needs it? I'll be spending most of my time in the air. Just bring oats. And apples. And sugar. And make sure you find a doughnut place when we hit land._

"I think I can manage something to keep the rain off, at least. Maybe a shelter on deck that I can put up when we hit a storm. And… thanks, Blackjack."

_You need someone to watch your back, boss._

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At my birthday party that night, it was just me, Mom, and Paul. We'd gotten pizza at a nice restaurant, with a welcome interruption by a birthday Iris-message from Tyson that appeared in the middle of the pie. He said that reconstruction under the sea was going well, but that our father's visits had been nonexistent. He was shut up on Olympus and was only in contact with Triton for official business. We said good-bye at around the time that the people from the neighboring tables went from aggravated looks to actual requests to keep it down; Hecate only knows what they were actually seeing, but it must have been annoying.

Back home, there was birthday cake (blue, of course) and gifts. Most of them were stuff to take with me on the ship; Mom got me a hoodie with the logo 'my boat, my rules' and a baseball cap saying 'I'm the captain. Get over it.' From Paul, I got a year's subscription to a sailing magazine. The big gifts were a detailed set of navigational charts for the European coast and the Mediterranean, where I was planning on heading first, and gift certificates for a sailing course and a coastal navigation course at a Manhattan sailing club.

I raised the sailing certificate. It was the birthday for odd gifts, apparently. "Uh, thanks, but…"

"Just because you know how to use a car, doesn't mean you know the rules of the road, Percy," Mom said firmly. "I checked, and they make sure to teach the safety signals and navigational signs you'll see in occupied waters. One trip on a mythological sea does not mean that you have the experience you'll need in a harbor."

I shrugged. She'd been amazing about my deciding to put my education and potential job off for as long as possible in order to bum around the world on an ancient boat. This would make her happy, and at least it was a classroom I'd enjoy. "Think I can get an 'A'?"

"Another one?" Her smile was proud. The celebration we'd had at the beginning of summer when I brought home an A in physics and a solid B in pre-calculus had been bigger than when I'd got home after the war. "I think you'll blow them out of the water."

Paul chuckled, and reached out to take Mom's hand. "Only, please, not literally. And, Percy, there's something else important we have to tell you…"

My mom lost her smile and gripped Paul's hand tightly. They did a quick couple-communication thing with their eyes, and then she sighed and said, "Percy, I'm pregnant."

I wasn't sure I'd heard her right, and just kind of sat there staring at her for a minute. _Pregnant_? I mean, she was only thirty-six, but somehow I'd never thought that a second marriage might equal a second kid. It hadn't ever come up with Gabe, but she'd probably been pretty careful about birth control with him. (She'd probably been pretty careful with my dad, too, but human birth control didn't usually work with gods and goddesses.) If she was pregnant this time, it was because she wanted to be.

"Percy?" she asked worriedly. It broke me out of my daze.

"That's… that's great! When? Is it a boy or girl?"

She relaxed, and I realized how afraid she'd been that I'd be upset about it. "I'm two months along, so next March. We won't know the gender for a few more weeks."

I got up and gave her a hug, and Paul a clap on the shoulder. "Congratulations! Seriously, that's the best news I've had all summer. Have you talked about names?"

"Well, if it's a girl, we're thinking either Erica, after Paul's mother, or Andromeda."

"Theme naming? Weird. Plus, she married Perseus, so go with Erica," I advised. Mom laughed.

"If it's a boy, probably James, after Sally's father," Paul added. He was looking a lot happier too; I hadn't noticed his tension until it was gone. We continued celebrating for the rest of the evening, and I did my best to show how happy I was for them, and how much I was looking forward to having another sibling.

I tried to hide the creeping terror, and thanked the gods that I'd already made plans to leave. They would never have to think they'd driven me away.

I didn't manage that as well as I'd hoped. Paul came onto the small balcony after me later, while I was watering the moonflowers. Mom took care of them mostly, but had planted a few in a flowerbox that she insisted would come with me when I sailed, and she made me water them during the school months.

"Your mother is getting ready for bed. Just between us, I need to know, are you all right? We can talk it through if you're worried."

"I'm happy for you," I answered firmly. "Paul, you both deserve this. You're going to be a great dad."

"You know we're not replacing you, right?" He looked at me earnestly.

"I know. It's _Mom_." The only real constant I'd had my entire life came from knowing that my mom loved and was proud of me, despite everything. "It's just… half-bloods attract monsters. Around a pregnant woman, or a baby… I'm scared."

"I know. We talked about it, before she went off the pill at the beginning of the summer. But we really want you to be here. You shouldn't learn you're getting a sibling when you're an ocean away."

That didn't actually make me feel much better. That my mom and Paul knew the risk and decided to go ahead anyway didn't mean there should be any risk.

I got an idea. A stupid idea, yeah, but I was good at making those work. "I need to head out for a while. Do you mind?"

He frowned.

"I'll be back before midnight."

"Is it for your…" He did the hand-circle that had come to be the family sign for 'demigod-thing'.

"Yeah. I need to test out a birthday present." I went back to my room to grab my upper-body armor.

Half an hour later, Rachel's phone rang three times before she picked up. I used every bit of my minor Mist-manipulation ability to try to make sure that no-one would notice the battle that was about to start in the middle of Central Park's Great Lawn.

"Percy? What's going on?" She sounded confused, but not like I'd woken her up. It was probably a bit after ten now, too early for her to be asleep.

"I just want to talk. Do you have a minute?"

"Yeah! I mean, yeah, sure, but… I kind of thought you'd be waiting until after you sailed away to use the phone. What about monsters?"

I saw the first sign of movement above me. A Stymphalian bird, and the rest of its flock would join it soon. A dracenae slithered out of the Reservoir in the distance. It had probably been hunting from there since the end of the war.

I uncapped Riptide. "Let them come."

I figured a good boyfriend should call once a week. The monster population of New York was about to be drastically reduced.

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_**June, two years after the end of the Second Olympian War.** _

I made sure not to toss my cap too high. I wanted to keep it. There had been a lot of times I didn't think I'd get this far.

A couple of hours later, I was nursing a can of soda at the post-graduation party. Mom had been at the ceremony, but had left right after congratulating me since Erica was getting fussy. Paul was on the other side of the room guarding the punch- most of the teachers had been roped into chaperoning. Rachel hadn't been able to see all of her old friends from Goode in person when she'd come with me to my senior prom, but left the group that she was catching up with and came over to where I was leaning against the wall anyway.

"Are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

She gave me a look that said she knew I was lying, and I sighed. "It's stupid, but I'd kind of hoped… well, it's been a couple of years since I've heard from my dad. I thought he might come today."

"Yeah, about the gods…" She fished an envelope out of her purse. "Happy graduation."

I opened it, and pulled out a brochure and a receipt for lessons for two. It took me a while to make out the wording on the brochure, at first because the letters twisted around, and then because I was sure I hadn't read it right the first time. "You want me dead? What, did I miss your birthday or something?"

"The king of the gods is not paying attention, Percy." Despite the words, she was careful not to use his name. That was smart, considering what she'd just given me. "You know that already. When was the last time you saw anyone higher up in the pantheon than a river god?"

I actually had to think hard about it. "On Grover's birthday, two years ago. Apollo had a concert and wanted us to find something for him."

"Exactly. No-one's heard from them recently but Annabeth, and they haven't left Olympus or let anyone but her in for a long time. I know you miss your dad, but at least you've met him, right?"

"Yeah." I had a great mom and stepdad, and my father loved me even if he couldn't be around a lot. I knew I was luckier than a lot of demigods, but that didn't always make it easy. I looked at the brochure again. "So what's this for, then?"

"Well, when the cat's away, the mice can play, right? You're not the center of the universe anymore. Your prophecy is over, and the gods have other problems. You can either cry me a river, or…" She tapped the brochure and grinned.

"…Promise me you've seen us living through this."

"I swear on Apollo's name."

Good enough. I grinned back at her. "Then let's go skydiving."

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**_August 18, exactly two years after the end of the Second Olympian War._ **

"Poseidon."

I scraped a spare-rib into the small eternal brazier that Chiron had given me last week, almost certainly as a reminder not to forget to respect the gods. I sat down next to my mom and took Erica to let her and Paul eat while Tyson and my other friends made their offerings; I don't know what the rest of the restaurant thought they saw, but no one had complained about the fire-code violation yet. Half of Camp Half-Blood, it seemed, was gathered around the back table of the barbecue restaurant. I didn't often have a big crowd for my birthday, since it usually landed a few days after camp ended, but this was doubling as a farewell sendoff. I was flattered that so many had shown up.

Camp had ended at the normal time this year; last year, Chiron had extended the season by a few days so we could have the memorial on the day most of our campers had died. My ship was finally finished and moored on the Hudson. I'd been sailing her on day-trips around the Sound all summer, and the camp bead this year showed the _Firefly_ -vs.-triremes battle from three weeks ago, where we'd substituted green paint for Greek fire in the cannons and catapults.

(I won. No matter what Clarisse said, using waterspouts to catch and return projectiles is not cheating. And Ares Cabin should have known better than to challenge a son of Poseidon to a war on the water anyway.)

Mom and Paul saw the _Firefly_ for the first time when I sailed it back to New York after camp closed last week, and we spent four days sailing up the coast and back. My little sister, now five months old, had taken the trip well. My mom thought the rocking soothed her. I figured it meant that I didn't get everything from my dad's side of the family; Mom had fallen in love with the sea all on her own. Paul spent the first day seasick, but got his sea legs in time to enjoy the last half of the trip.

At Annabeth's suggestion, I had combined the captain's cabin and one of the holds into a cabin where I actually had room to stretch, and left the other two cabins the same size, but furnished them with new bunks for when I had passengers. The small mess area had a modern stove and a fridge and freezer, all of which were powered from a series of roll-out solar panels on deck that followed my commands as easily as the cannons did, and the head had a fresh-water shower and a compost toilet. The main room that had once been the crew quarters had a couple of comfortable couches, a low-slung table, an entertainment system with a satellite TV and internet hookup, and built-in shelves that I wasn't sure I would ever fill.

Turning the decorating over to Aphrodite Cabin had not resulted in the pink frilly monstrosity that I'd been halfway afraid of, and the furniture and paint in the public areas were all in warm shades of browns, reds, and dark oranges that I actually really liked. I felt Piper's influence, although she denied having any talent in decorating and had mostly given her siblings free rein. My own cabin was blue and green, and felt like a cozier version of Cabin Three; Lacy had been determined to go with a sea-god scheme in at least one part of the ship.

I was ready to leave. I had been ready ever since the last sail was raised; as soon as it was actually possible to sail away, the crawling that had been under my skin since the end of the war had gotten ten times worse. It lessened whenever I weighed anchor, but came back as soon as I turned the ship around to sail home. I had become as distractible as Leo this summer; I was just glad that I had finished school before finishing my ship, or I'd probably have flunked out again.

Annabeth kicked me under the table. "Percy!"

"What?" I asked, startled out of thoughts of tomorrow.

"You haven't been listening at all, have you? Speech!"

"Speech!" Will Solace agreed. The rest of the campers took up the chant. "Speech! Speech! Speech!"

I rolled my eyes and stood, holding out my hands until they quieted down.

"Thanks for coming. I'm gonna miss you guys." I paused. "Yeah, I've got nothing else."

I sat back down to loud booing, and they took up the chant again until I stood up one more time. "Fine, fine, if you insist. Let's talk about the future. Rachel, do you mind?"

Rachel and I had lived through the skydiving lessons, obviously. There hadn't even been a hint of thunder. It had been incredible; flying on a pegasus was completely different from free-falling.

She smiled at me from the far end of the table. "Go ahead."

"What is my destiny?"

She stiffened, and breathed green smoke from her mouth, making a nearby waiter remind us that we couldn't smoke inside.

_"On the waves of Manannan mac Lir_

_Where the children of Morrigan breed_

_The dream of the poets and seers_

_Shall offer the prize that you need._

_The choice between knowledge and wisdom,_

_Made well, is the choice that will send_

_The son of the sea on a journey_

_That continues for time without end."_

Rachel collapsed; Nyssa and Jake caught her before she could fall into her brisket. The rest of the table was silent. It was a pretty unusual prophecy. They didn't usually contain actual names.

"…Who?" Pollux finally asked.

"Well, the 'son of the sea' is pretty obvious," Annabeth said, frowning. "The other two… the name Manannan is familiar, but I can't think of from where…"

"Irish mythology. He's a sea god," my mom answered. She got a couple of surprised looks, which turned to embarrassment as everyone remembered exactly why she had a good reason to be the authority on sea gods at the table.

The second name came from an even more unexpected source. Clarisse said, "I think I know the other name. Morrigan was a war goddess. Her sacred animals are carrion birds. Crows and ravens. She might have been from Ireland, I can't remember."

"But they're not real, right?" Leo asked.

"They might have been once," Grover answered grimly. "Gods that forget themselves, or that lose the source of their power… well, they fade. It happened to Helios and Selene. It happened to Pan."

I glanced down at my palm, where a few months ago a strange kid with a wand and crooked sword had drawn a summoning spell for if I ever encountered his brand of mythology again. I hadn't told anyone that the monster that had eaten Guido's girlfriend had been an enchanted Nile Crocodile. We were at peace. We didn't need to go looking for trouble. But if the gods of Egypt were still around…

Rachel groaned and shook her head as she came out of her post-prophecy daze. "That never gets any less weird. What did I say?"

"I need to go to Ireland and look for crows, have a dream, make a choice, and keep on going. Does that sound about right?" I looked around.

" 'The dream of the poets and seekers' may not refer to any dream you're going to have. You aren't much of a poet, although we may all qualify as seers because of the demigod dreams," Annabeth pointed out. "It also doesn't say you're going to be the one making a choice."

"I'll find out when I get there, then. Ireland will be a fun first stop. And I really like the last line." I raised my glass. "I think I've been standing up here long enough, so how about a toast? To all of us, and to Camp Half-blood. May our journeys never end."

We made the toast, and I managed to keep from spacing out for the rest of the party. They sang 'Happy Birthday', there was cake, and I enjoyed one final night with my friends and family. It almost made me regret leaving. Almost.

As people were filing out saying good-bye and after I'd settled the check, Nico di Angelo appeared next to me. He hadn't actually shadow-travelled, although he moved so quietly these days that it seemed like it. He'd been sitting next to Grover all night, and had seemed to have a good time helping him and Piper mock the restaurant's vegetarian selection.

I was glad; the fourteen-year-old was hardly ever at camp even though his father had a cabin now. Spending that much time around dead people couldn't be healthy, but he tended to disappear whenever Chiron or I tried to get him to stay longer. He seemed to enjoy the job of his dad's ambassador, at least. He and Annabeth were the only demigods still in contact with their parents, since they visited them at home regularly, and if they knew anything about why the gates of Olympus were shut neither of them was able to talk about it.

Once I'd finished jumping out of my skin, he handed me a finger-sized package in black paper. "Happy birthday, Percy."

"Thanks, Nico. And, thanks for coming. It was good to see you." The package turned out to be a… whistle?... of freezing-cold black metal. "Is this Stygian iron?"

"Yeah. Daedalus made a few dog whistles for Cerberus a year or so back. It's like the Stygian ice whistle that he gave you, but you can use it more than once. Your dog will hear it and come. I tried."

Wow. "Thanks, Nico. I've been feeling guilty about leaving her behind, but Mrs. O'Leary's too big to take on the ship."

He twisted his ring nervously. "That's not why I gave it to you. I mean, if you want to play with your dog when you're on land, great, but she can shadow-walk you back to New York. When you want to visit, I mean."

"Oh." I looked at the whistle with new respect, and added it to my necklace, arranging the beads so that the whistle was in the center. "Thank you, Nico. I wasn't looking forward to not seeing anyone here for years. I mean, it's not like I'd risk an international plane trip, and I'm not going to ask Blackjack to carry me across an ocean."

"You're welcome." He gave me one of the few real smiles I'd seen from him since his sister's death. "There's one other thing… hearing your prophecy made me think of it. I told you I'd shadow-walked to China a couple of times when I was still learning, right?"

"Yeah."

"Over there, my powers didn't all work. I could still shadow-walk, but when I tried to summon the dead, they didn't obey me. I eventually figured out that… that they didn't owe allegiance to my father."

"Just a second." Most of the campers were gone, and Mom and Paul had gone home to put Erica to bed an hour ago, but I pulled him into a more isolated corner anyway. He jerked his shoulder out from under my hand like I'd burned him; I'd forgotten he didn't like to be touched. "Did you meet whoever they belonged to?"

He gaped at me. That obviously hadn't been the question he was expecting. "You believe me? Just like that?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't I?"

"You know other gods still exist?" His voice cracked in surprise. I'd been so glad when my voice stopped doing that; there was nothing more embarrassing than suddenly going squeaky in front of the Olympian council.

"Yeah." I hadn't told anyone else about meeting Carter, but Nico seemed to know about all this already. "Earlier in the spring I went after a monster on Long Island that had eaten one of the pegasi. It wasn't a Greek monster. There was another guy hunting it, and he wasn't a demigod, but my sword was able to cut him. We wound up working together."

"Oh." Nico seemed relieved. I guess because I wasn't calling him either crazy or blasphemous. "Was the monster Chinese?"

I shook my head. "Egyptian. The kid was a magician. He gave me a way to contact him if anything like that came up again, but I haven't seen anything else. You're the first person I've told."

He nodded. "My father suggested I not share the information. But you actually want to go to China at some point, right? So I thought you'd find out anyway."

"Thanks. And I'll keep an eye out for any Irish gods." I looked at him thoughtfully. It couldn't hurt to ask, right? "Would you like to come with me?"

He went bright red. " _What_?"

Never mind, yes it could. No matter how friendly we'd been tonight, there was a lot of bad history between us, from Bianca's death to his handing me over to his father. But I'd already made the offer, so I forged ahead anyway.

"I've got extra cabins, and you could shadow-travel back home if you ever got tired of sailing. I'm going to Italy eventually. Don't you want to go back? Or actually tour China for real?"

"Um, no, not really," he stammered. "And if I did I'd shadow-travel there. There's no place for me on your ship."

I frowned at that. "Is this a son of Hades thing? Because if it is, I don't think my dad cares. Z- the king of the gods may be a jerk about us flying, but I'm pretty sure you can go sailing."

" _Yes_." He grabbed onto that like a lifeline. "Yes, it's a son of Hades thing. I don't sail. I get… um, seasick. Really seasick."

I called minotaur-dung. He still blamed me for Bianca. At least I'd made the effort, though.

"OK. Let me know if you change your mind, all right? The offer's always open."

"I _won_ 't." He stepped into a shadow and disappeared. I was pretty sure I'd somehow just made our tentative friendship even shakier. I sighed and went back to where Annabeth and Rachel were waiting.

"I guess this is good-bye, then?" Annabeth gave me a small smile.

"Not for good," I promised. "Nico just gave me a magic dog whistle. I'll catch up with everyone at Christmas. And we can IM, and I'll post pictures of everywhere I go."

"You'd better. Get some good ones of the Parthenon. I'll get there eventually." She stepped forward and gave me a hug. "Be careful, Kelp-head. The old seas are dangerous."

"I will be," I promised. I let go of her and turned to Rachel. "Do I get a hug?"

"Percy, we need to talk." She was trying to look serious, but her lips were twitching. "I don't think this is working out- you're going across the ocean, and I'm going to art school, and, well…"

I clutched my heart. "Are you… _breaking up with me_?"

"I'd say that 'it's not you, it's me', but I'd be lying. We both know it's you."

I grabbed her hand and stared deep into her eyes. "Rachel, please! I can change!"

She finally burst out laughing and broke my grip. Someone had been teaching her self-defense - probably Annabeth, who was laughing along with her. She gave me a hug, then punched my shoulder as she stepped away. "Don't, Percy. Don't ever change."

"Ow. And now you're abusing me. What if that had been my mortal spot?" I rubbed my shoulder theatrically. "Worst girlfriend ever. You can't break up with me, I'm breaking up with you first."

"If that makes you feel better," she giggled. "Ask me for a prophecy if you ever need one, Percy. Stay safe."

"No promises about safety, but I'll be in touch."

We left the restaurant and went our separate ways. It had become much safer to be a demigod in New York this last year, and, more to the point, much safer to live with one. Once a week or so, I let every monster in a hundred-mile radius know where I was, and the ones that hated demigods came to kill me.

I was still alive. They weren't.

The next morning, I went to the closest dock and _called_. In the distance, the _Firefly_ 's sails furled and her anchor raised. As my clipper came closer to the dock, I shook Paul's hand and gave Erica a kiss on the forehead while she tried to stuff both fists into her mouth. Precocious kid.

I turned into my mom's open arms. When had she gotten shorter than me?

"Mom. Thanks. For everything." For always believing in me, blessing everything I had ever tried to do, being there when I needed her and letting me go when she knew I was ready.

"I love you, Percy. You'll always be able to come home."

"I know. I love you, Mom."

The _Firefly_ pulled up to the dock, and ropes swung down and wrapped around my last pieces of luggage and the five hundred pounds of dog kibble we'd picked up on the way. When they were hauled aboard, I took a deep breath and stepped away from my mom. This was it. It was finally happening.

The boarding ramp pulled itself up behind me, and the sails furled. The itching under my skin disappeared. Completely. I was at peace, for the first time that I could remember.

As the _Firefly_ pulled away from the dock, I raised an arm one last time in farewell, and didn't turn back again. When I got to the center of the Hudson, Blackjack landed on the clear spot on the foredeck.

_Are we ready to go, boss?_

I pulled a box of doughnuts out of my backpack and pushed them towards him.

"Yeah, Blackjack. We're ready. Let's see what's out there."

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_**August 18th, exactly four years after the end of the Second Olympian War.** _

"Happy birthday, dear Percy, happy birthday to you!"

I blew out the twenty candles on my birthday cake. We were at a pizza place in East Manhattan, which had given me a great opportunity to describe in horrific detail the single time I'd tried to order pizza in Rome. (I still felt vaguely gypped.) It was a smaller party than two years ago. Mom and Paul were there, of course, with Erica in a high-chair between them. She had Mom's brown hair and Paul's brown eyes, and was probably the most adorable toddler ever.

No, I'm not biased.

Annabeth , Rachel, Grover, and Nico were on the other side of the table; Annabeth and Rachel were going into their junior years at NYU's programs in architecture and art, respectively, and they were both minoring in classics. Nico was still working for his father, but had finally started spending enough time in camp to participate in the modern school classes that the year-round campers took.

Clarisse and Chris Rodriguez-La Rou were a bit farther down the table. They'd been passing through on their way back from their ROTC program's third-summer officer training, and had managed to make the party. Clarisse had finally officially handed her councilor position to one of her younger brothers last year, since she hadn't been able to be at camp in the summers. Leo and Piper, at the far end of the table, were still the councilors of their cabins, and were both about to start their first years of college.

"And here is your cake, Percy!" My brother Tyson had made it up from the ocean for my birthday, and was sitting between me and Clarisse. He handed me a corner piece. Nice.

As I took a drink before starting my cake, I felt a cool, salty sea breeze on my face, completely out of place in the slightly stuffy restaurant. I exchanged a glance with Tyson (which is an acquired skill with a Cyclops) and cut off a piece of my cake and tossed it into the brazier in the center of the table. It had had a frosting flower- that had been a real sacrifice.

"Poseidon."

I raised my Coke in salute.

_I'm doing fine, Dad. Thanks for checking._

The breeze ruffled our hair and disappeared.

Mrs. O'Leary would shadow-walk me back to Japan in two days, and after a final night out in Tokyo, I'd sail for China. It had been an amazing two years, and I had no intention of stopping. After I'd made it around the world, I'd go around again. I hadn't made it back to the Americas, or sailed around Africa, or touched northern Europe. There was so much left to see.

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_**August 11, five years after the Second Olympian War.** _

_"Your birthday is approaching again. We would like you to celebrate with us this year. Will you stay?"_

_"Sure, I'll let my family know."_

"I really can't agree with this course of action. Wouldn't it be better to see if a longer isolation would send Gaia back to sleep entirely?" Dionysus asked.

Apollo jerked out of his light doze at the question and glanced around at the assembled Olympians. He often caught bits of information in his sleep, as the god of prophecy, though they weren't usually in Japanese. He thought he even recognized the woman's voice, although he'd never before heard it that full of affection, or actually with anything but cold formality covering seething anger. They had only met once, but she had been memorable. The man who answered her had also been familiar, although he couldn't place him among any of the Japanese speakers he knew.

It would come to him. He never forgot a voice.

He turned his attention back to the meeting, and threw up his hands.

_"I am really bored._

_The Western World needs its Sun._

_Let the giants come."_

"Eloquent as always, Apollo," Hermes said dryly, "but I agree. We have neglected our duties long enough. The mortals have fallen into recessions and political gridlock, droughts and storms rage unchecked and undirected, and they made movies of the _Twilight_ series."

Murmurs of agreement rose from around the room, and from the few minor gods that observed from the recently constructed amphitheater that contained their new thrones. After their Styx-imposed obligations were fulfilled, the first few meetings had been well-attended, but everyone had figured out pretty quickly that there was nothing more boring than an Olympian council when nothing was happening. Zeus had decided to spread the misery, and attendance at both Solstice meetings had become mandatory for every god that had claimed a throne on Olympus.

Zeus rolled his eyes. "Yes, we are as recovered from the fight with Typhon as we ever will be, and the gates will be opened. Dionysus, you will return to your community service. The rest of you may resume your normal functions. You may watch your children, but keep your distance unless you must claim them. It's high time we went back to the traditional values."

Poseidon in particular looked mutinous at that, but before he could speak, Hera interjected with, "All of our power will not avail us alone against the giants. We must reunite with the demigods, and reconcile them with each other. If we fight the children of the Earth, our mortal children must fight beside us, or we are doomed to fail."

"We do _not_ require a demigod's help again. Our reach and influence have grown greatly since the first Gigantomachy. Gaia will be defeated without any mortals this time," Zeus snapped. When their half-blood children saved Olympus and their leader turned down the reward he was offered, it had stuck in Zeus's craw. The rest of them had been grateful for a few months, but then the jokes had started among the minor immortals. 'Hey, did you hear about Jackson? They tried to make him a god, but he wasn't selfish enough.'

"It's got nothing to do with power. That's just how they were made," Ares interjected unexpectedly in support of his mother. He shrugged at the looks he was getting- they would expect a voice of reason in war from Mars, but the war god was firmly Greek at the moment. "What? There's no fun in an enemy that can't be killed. Defeat a giant without a demigod around, and he'll just get up again."

"We must resume contact with our children," Athena agreed. "Though I do not believe that the Romans will be necessary. The Greek demigods will suffice."

"That is a debate for another day," Hera said. She had been agitating to unite their sides since Gaia began stirring five years ago. Apollo was pretty sure that, as Juno, she would go ahead with her plan and ask for forgiveness later once the gates of Olympus were opened. He didn't care; his Greek and Roman forms were pretty much the same, down even to their names. And the last five years had been so _dull_ , stuck keeping the vast majority of their power and awareness closeted up on a single mountain.

Hera continued, "We have always been more distant from Rome, but the Greek demigods will certainly have noticed our silence. The five-year anniversary of the end of the war is next week. Let us invite the defenders of Olympus and their siblings to join the celebration, and renew our bonds with your children."

"Seconded," Poseidon said immediately, followed just as quickly by Artemis, who had been separated from her Hunt for half a decade.

"Cut a giant into pieces and he will have as much difficulty reforming as Ouranos and Kronos did," Zeus snapped. "We do not need them."

"There is a prophecy, brother," Hestia spoke up unexpectedly. Her throne, a comfortable rocking chair of deep brown wood with flame-colored cushions, had been restored to its place between Hera's and Demeter's, just as a new, stark black Stygian Iron throne now sat between Poseidon's and Hephaestus's thrones. Both stayed empty unless it was a Solstice; Hestia still preferred the task of tending the hearth, and Hades stayed in the Underworld except when he transported himself directly to Olympus every winter and, now, summer.

Apollo personally thought that getting laid every summer had improved Hades' temperament immeasurably, though Demeter got noticeably crankier every June.

" 'Seven half-bloods shall answer the call'." Hestia rose from her stool, perfectly at ease as a normal-sized eight year old in the middle of the semicircle of fifteen-foot gods. "It means that we _will_ be forced to call upon them. Your mortal children will play a part in this fight. This is fated. Struggling against it is pointless.

"Four of the Seven will come from Camp Half-blood, and the children of Aphrodite and Hephaestus have never met their parent. Hera's proposal is wise. Whether you choose to limit contact afterwards is up to you, but first show them what they will fight for. Let them see the flames of the West."

Zeus grunted. Hestia was the peacemaker, and the eldest of the six children of Rhea. She did not speak up often, but when she did she was difficult to ignore. "Very well. All in favor?"

The only dissenters were Dionysus and Zeus himself. Hera smiled, gracious in victory, and handed a stack of pre-made invitations to Hermes, who grinned as the messages disappeared and he let his power leave the mountain for the first time in five years. He had been going stir-crazy, and had told Apollo many times that he and Artemis were the lucky ones- there was always a small part of them driving a chariot somewhere in the world. They had been the only gods still with a significant part of their consciousness out in the world, although their father always watched while they were in the sky to ensure that they made no stops or detours. Each time, Apollo had replied that it was no fun being able to look and not touch.

"Is there any other business?" Zeus asked, looking around.

"Yes, actually," Poseidon said unexpectedly. "It concerns the ocean primarily, but it may spill onto the surface world. In my last communication with Triton, he said that Ryujin has requested a face-to-face meeting concerning our disputed waters in the North Pacific. If we had not opened the gates today, we would have needed to do so three days from now. He told Triton that he has a proposal for a diplomatic settlement."

"Disputed waters?" Athena asked, as her eyebrows rose at the mention of the dragon god of the Far Eastern seas. "What do you mean?"

Poseidon grimaced. "When I was fighting Oceanus, the majority of my power was focused in the Atlantic. My control over the waters in the far western part of my territory weakened, and Ryujin pushed my influence back significantly."

"How far?" Artemis asked.

"From the Mariana Trench to the Midway Islands and Hawaii. I kept hold of the waters in the South Pacific." Poseidon shook his head. "It's a large chunk of the Pacific, but no merman colonies had settled that far west, and those waters are some of the deepest and most inhospitable in the world. Even we like some light, although the dragons may find it more to their tastes. It was not worth another war so soon after finishing the last one, and so we have had an uneasy peace on the new border since then. Ryujin appears to wish for a more permanent resolution."

"Was he working with Oceanus?" Zeus asked with a frown.

Poseidon snorted. "He would never stoop to an alliance with a Western god. It was an attack of opportunity, nothing more."

"But, it is a continuation of a disturbing trend," Hermes pointed out.

Most of the council grimaced, reminded of the turning tide after the Second World War, as pantheon after pantheon had put aside their conflicts with their neighbors and surged back to reduce the influence of Western civilization in their native territories. It had started with the Hindu gods back in 1947, and had continued ever since. The gods of a land were rarely aligned with the politics of the mortals that lived there; even when a new country remained friendly with its former colonial power, the native gods were usually implacably hostile to the West.

"It's an insult, is what it is," Ares snarled. "Are you just going to let him have your land? Er, water, I mean."

"Your loss of influence in the colonies is not relevant here. Understand, Ares, Hermes, I was not asking permission, only informing the council of an ongoing negotiation. The oceans remain my domain." Poseidon smiled thinly. "I will see what terms he offers. If they are not agreeable, the oceans will go to war. The conflict with Gaia will be fought primarily on land; Polybotes is not the opponent that Oceanus was. We are in a more favorable position than we would have been five years ago."

Zeus nodded curtly. "Very well. Keep us posted. Is there any other business?"

Despite how much he just wanted to get out of there and enjoy his new freedom, Apollo spoke up. There was something about his dream that nagged at him. It was too out of place. "I had an odd dream. Are there any memorable birthdays coming up soon?"

Aphrodite snapped her compact shut, and even Hephaestus stopped fiddling with the gadget in his hand to look at him incredulously.

"What?"

"You're the god of prophecy, brother," Artemis said. " 'A child of the eldest gods/ shall reach sixteen against all odds.' Does that sound familiar?"

Oh. Right. Hadn't he and his satyr friend been celebrating Percy's birthday the last time he saw them, though? Maybe they'd put the celebration off until they weren't at war. That made sense.

Percy's voice had been settling into a light baritone that had sounded a lot like the man's voice in his dream… but Poseidon's son didn't speak fluent Japanese, and certainly not without any trace of an American accent. It couldn't have been him.

"He'll have just turned twenty-one at the party, hmm?" Dionysus mused. "A pity he's your son, Barnacle Beard. I never did manage to get Theseus drunk. He was able to keep everything but high-proof alcohol out of his bloodstream."

"And a pity I haven't been able to mention that trick to Percy," Poseidon answered, lips twitching and looking considerably less grim at the reminder of the upcoming celebration. "Everyone should learn the consequences of overindulgence once."

As Dionysus toasted him with a can of Diet Coke, Hermes snapped his fingers and produced three invitations. "And, done, with a few holdouts. Ares, Clarisse La Rou and my son Chris are deployed in Afghanistan; you'll be able to get the invitations to them easier than I can."

Ares grinned. "That's my girl!"

"And they got married at some point, by the way." Hermes tossed two cards to Ares.

"Wait, what?"

"Poseidon, Percy's in your realm- I couldn't find him." The last invitation folded into a paper airplane and sailed towards Poseidon. The sea god caught it and sent the bulk of his power out into his oceans for the first time in five years.

"And, _if there is no other business,_ we're done here. Finally." Zeus had gone as stir-crazy as the rest of them in the last five years.

"Wait." The second speaker in his dream couldn't have been Percy Jackson. But if it was… then Apollo must have been wrong about the identity of his companion, because she hated the West in general and Western demigods in particular with all the fury of the sun. "Wait until the invitation is sent."

"After five years, I will _not_ delay resuming our duties for one arrogant-"

"He's not under the sea," Poseidon said.

It silenced Zeus. Poseidon raised his trident and pointed towards the hearth. White mist rose from the fire, but instead of forming an image of Percy's current location, it stayed opaque. Hestia rose from her stool again and added her own power to the fire, which doubled the size of the flames but made the smoke no clearer. Hera extended her own hand, and Demeter followed suit. Zeus grimaced and joined his older siblings, and the smoke finally became just a bit clearer, enough to briefly resemble a sleeping body. It was enough to show that he was alive, but no more.

Poseidon replaced his trident in the holster on his throne with a frown.

"Could a giant have awakened without our noticing?" Athena asked. "Poseidon's son would be the logical first target, if they fear that the gods and demigods will fight together against them once more."

"It does not feel like a deliberate concealment," Hestia disagreed. "He is just beyond our influence. Poseidon, have you looked in on him while we have been shut up on Olympus?"

"…yes. A year ago, on his birthday. He was close by, and happy," Poseidon admitted grudgingly. Zeus's expression turned thunderous, but none of them were particularly startled that Poseidon had maneuvered around the restrictions upon them all to check on his favorite son; the only surprise was that he had done so just once.

"Then he's just traveled north for some reason," Hephaestus rumbled. "Check with his girlfriend when we close up here; she spends half her time here anyway."

Athena raised her eyebrows. "My daughter is not Percy Jackson's girlfriend."

 _"What?"_ Aphrodite snapped. "What do you mean? He gave up immortality for her! They were meant to be!"

"Your machinations do not mean she had an obligation to accept his courtship. I am grateful she came to her senses."

Apollo cut off their uncle before the old Poseidon-Athena rivalry could take a new and interesting twist. "He hasn't gone north."

The Olympians looked at him as he rose from his throne and approached the fire. White mist billowed out of the Flames of the West once more.

"He's gone east. Ares, Athena, Hermes, with me." He was wrong about this. He had to be wrong about this.

(He was the god of truth, and could recognize a lie when he told it to himself.)

The eldest gods were powerful within their own domains, but it was the younger generation that served as the vanguard of Western Civilization.

Ares and Athena, their war deities.

Hermes, for trade and diplomacy.

Dionysus, the god of wine and debauchery and the patron of the theater.

Hephaestus, who with Athena and Hermes encompassed their various aspects of technology and innovation.

Apollo himself, whose influence in other civilizations these days spread mostly through music and pop culture.

(In the past, it had spread through plague. He had done far more than Ares or Athena to bring the Americas into the West.)

One by one, the deities whose influence extended into Japan focused on the fire, and the mist cleared.

The picture showed two people on a bed in a darkened room. The man was naked, but covered by a light blanket from the waist down. He had the body of an Olympic swimmer and the good looks of a Greek god. The Greek god behind him, to be precise- Percy Jackson's resemblance to Poseidon had only gotten stronger as he finished growing and lost the last of his childhood roundness.

They had only a second to take in the scene before the goddess next to him jerked awake and turned towards them. She was just as naked as her lover, and they had a brief glimpse of long black hair and a beautiful Asian face twisted in outrage before she made a sharp gesture. A golden line slashed across the mist and destroyed the image.

"Who was _that_?" Artemis asked in shock, speaking for the entire council.

Apollo removed his sunglasses. His eyes were glowing as golden as the power that had shattered the image of a damning betrayal. He didn't think he'd been this furious since Zephyrus killed Hyacinthus.

"That was Amaterasu-omikami. Sun goddess of Japan. Central deity of the Shinto pantheon."

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**Mythology, picture links, and general notes:**

The short stories referenced in this chapter were 'Percy Jackson and the Staff of Hermes' and 'Percy Jackson and the Singer of Apollo', with mentions of the events in the 'Son of Sobek'. This story was first conceived of when I saw one too many stories where Percy was betrayed or abandoned or ignored by the gods, and then did something silly like join Chaos or the Titans in retaliation, even though the gods are really annoying to have around in daily life. It branched off from there as I started thinking about where he might go and what he might do instead, and I've got some things planned that I've never seen before in a PJO fic, but that's kind of where it started.

So, it was a forty-page-long setup, but to summarize: When Zeus almost completely closed off Olympus in the hopes that withdrawing from the world would keep Gaia and the giants from waking up, it worked. Five years later, the gods have fully recovered from fighting Typhon and have left Olympus, the Giant War is about to start, and Percy is kind of hoping that the gods go back to ignoring him again soon, thanks all the same.

 **Explanations of the pairings, in the hopes of avoiding future flames:** I thought about making this story Percabeth, but every time I considered writing a story with a brilliant architect who leaves an important and meaningful job that she'd dreamed about her entire life, just to follow her man as he bums around the world, a part of me died inside. I do like the pairing, and tried to give the 'breakup' the attention it deserved. Percy will have lovers of both genders, but his most lasting relationship is going to be with his ship.

Regarding the other canon pairings: it is my goal to make all of the relationships in the story driven by the plot, and not vice versa. The Heros of Olympus timeline has been pushed back five years, which means that Jason/Piper won't be happening because Jason had a lot of extra time to get to know Reyna, and I doubt I'll write any Frank/Hazel considering that he'll be twenty-one and she'll still be resurrected at thirteen. That's not even close to legal in California.

 **The _Firefly_ :** Modeled after the _Chasseur_ , a Baltimore clipper that had a distinguished career as an American privateer in the War of 1812 and that did not meet the accident in battle that I described. Good pictures of a similar ship can be found at [www.pride2.org](http://www.pride2.org). Despite being improbably intact after two centuries in a corrosive saltwater environment, metal and all, it is just a normal sailing ship; I've given Percy some significant issues, but the ship is a symptom, not the cause.

 **Ryujin:** Dragons are the spirits of the water and rains in both Chinese and Japanese mythology; Ryujin is the ruler of the sea in Shinto mythology, although Susano'o, the god of storms, also has some power over the ocean. His daughter Otohime married a demigod hunter named Hoori, and their son was the father of Emperor Jimmu, the legendary first emperor of Japan. The page my mental image of Ryujin's dragon form is coming from is <http://www.gothambynight.com/scion/ryujin.htm>

In-story, I've squished the mythologies together where it concerns the ocean. Ryujin is the ruler of the dragon gods of the seas around China and Japan, with a separate court that has strong ties to the pantheons of both countries, but which is more independent from the land gods of either pantheon than Poseidon is from Olympus. Ryujin's original territory was the Sea of Japan, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea. Like Poseidon, who started in the Mediterranean and moved west, he has expanded his influence considerably in recent centuries. His territory now stretches around Thailand and through Indonesia and the Philippines, and he made a major push into Poseidon's waters in the North Pacific when Poseidon was distracted fighting Oceanus. His territory is bordered on the west by Varuna, the Hindu sea god in the Indian Ocean, and by Poseidon to the south (Australia and New Zealand) and east.

 **'The Hindu gods, back in 1947':** India and Pakistan gained independence from Britain in 1947, and many former European territories followed suit in the next fifty years, up to and until Hong Kong was transferred from England's sovereignty to the People's Republic of China in 1997.

 **Amaterasu:** The sun goddess of Japan and the ruler of the Shinto pantheon; her full title is Amaterasu-omikami. My mental image comes from <http://genzoman.deviantart.com/art/Amaterasu-126263744>. Hoori, the hunter who married Ryujin's daughter, was her great-grandson, and so Hoori's grandson Emperor Jimmu was Amaterasu's descendent. All emperors of Japan claimed this divine heritage until the 1946 Humanity Declaration in Allied-occupied Japan after WWII, when Emperor Hirohito denied that he was divine. Amaterasu, consequently, is less than fond of the West.

Amaterasu has two brothers, the moon god Tsukuyomi, who is also her husband, and Susano'o, the god of storms, both of whom will be introduced next chapter. All three deities (and a lot of others) were born when their father Izanagi purified himself after failing to retrieve his wife from the Underworld; Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi were born when he washed his left and right eyes, respectively, and Susano'o was born when he washed his nose.

Amaterasu's most famous legend is when she and Susano'o got in a contest over who could make the best gods from a household object, and there was an argument over who won. Susano'o threw a tantrum that resulted in the death of one of Amaterasu's attendants, which made Amaterasu so upset that she closed herself up in a cave and refused to come out. The world was thrown into darkness, and everything was dying until a goddess of laughter did a strip-tease in front of Amaterasu's cave while all the other Shinto gods hooted and applauded. Amaterasu wanted to know what the commotion was about, and was told that they'd found a goddess more radiant than the sun goddess. She got insulted, came out of the cave, and saw her reflection for the first time in the mirror hung from the tree outside. While she was distracted by the shiny, the other gods sealed up the cave behind her and sunlight was brought back to the world.


	2. I meet a magic fish

**Disclaimer** : To the best of my knowledge, Excalibur Almaz and its chairman Arthur Dula have no affiliation with any Celtic deity.

**Mythology Notes** \- like in the last chapter, at the end of this chapter there is a (probably too long...) section with elaborations on the mythology references. I've tried to make sure that reading them isn't necessary for understanding the story; they are there for the curious. If I have deliberately taken liberties with a legend, I'll mention it in the notes.

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**_Mid-September, Two years after the Second Olympian War_ **

I put away my phone after leaving my mom a message telling her that I'd gotten to Ireland safely. Blackjack had touched down on a beach in the south of Ireland, a little ways out of the port of Cobh where I'd moored the _Firefly_. Off-shore, a sea serpent breached the surface, but seemed to decide against coming ashore for a bite of demigod. I kept looking around and didn't sheath Riptide. In New York, even that short of a message would have been guaranteed to bring out a Cyclops or two before I'd thinned the monster population out.

Right on cue, a woman came out of the woods. She was tall, taller than I was, and wearing a ragged green dress covered by a grey cloak. The hood of the cloak was down, and her long white hair fluttered in a nonexistent breeze around her pale face. She was crying from blood-shot eyes, but if she hadn't been she would have been beautiful, in the same way that the empousai in Kronos' army had been beautiful. Knowing that they would happily kill and eat me had always been a turn-off.

"A Roman half-blood? What brings you to this island, child?" Her voice matched her face- it was rough and scratchy, like she'd been crying for a long time.

I didn't lower my sword. Just because she'd stopped to talk first, didn't mean she was friendly. "I'm just passing through. I don't want any trouble. And I'm American, actually. Ah, why are you crying?"

She smiled through her tears. "Because someone is about to die."

I braced myself and gave her the setup. "Who?"

"You."

Naturally. Instead of attacking me physically, though, she opened her mouth and wailed.

I was suddenly grieving all over again for Bianca, Zoe, Beckendorf, Michael, Silena, Ethan, Luke, my own mother trapped in the Underworld by Hades- everyone I had lost, everyone I hadn't been able to save. My sword tip dipped towards the ground as I started to cry, and when the monster reached for me with clawed hands I didn't try to block her.

_Boss! Snap out of it!_

Blackjack bum-rushed me and shouldered me back into the water. As soon as I touched the sea, my mind cleared enough to realize what was going on. She could influence emotions with her voice, like the Sirens or Apollo's celedones, and I had no wax with me to plug my ears. I'd made peace with my dead a long time ago, though, and the monster was no Melinoe. If the ghost goddess had had no effect on me, I wasn't about to let this creepy lady take me down.

I pulled a globe of water to surround my head, which muffled and distorted the sound enough for me to fight back. She was more focused on dodging Blackjack than on me, and didn't move in time. It turned out that Irish monsters were as vulnerable to Celestial Bronze as Greek monsters were; the only remnant was golden dust and her grey cloak.

I let the water fall and stuffed the cloak into my backpack. "Thanks, Blackjack."

_No problem, boss. What was that thing?_

"No idea."

_A banshee_ , a new voice told us unexpectedly.

I jerked around with Riptide still in my hand, and saw a white mare coming out of the sea behind us. She was dry except for her mane, which was sea-blue, dripping, and tangled with seaweed in several places. The local equivalent of a hippocampus, probably.

_Banshees have become rarer since the Roman gods came. Most stay under the hills these days. Many of the old fairies do not welcome children of Rome, strangers. It was foolish to summon one._

_It was nothing we couldn't handle_ , Blackjack boasted, extending his wings casually. It was almost a mating display, but I doubted an impressive wingspan would help him score with a seahorse.

_So I saw_. She curved her neck flirtatiously. I could be wrong. Maybe Blackjack had universal appeal. _What brings you to Ireland_?

_We've got a prophecy. We're looking for some of your old gods- what were their names, boss?_

"We're looking for the waves of Manannan mac Lir and the children of Morrigan. We don't necessarily have to find the gods themselves."

_I can take you to where Manannan lives_ , she offered eagerly. _Just hop on._

"Really? Thanks!" That was easy. "What's your name? I'm Percy, and this is Blackjack."

_Aughisky. It's a pleasure to meet you._ She stood still for long enough for me to get a leg over her back, and darted into the water as soon as I was settled. She swam the way Blackjack flew- all legs trotting.

_I'll follow by air, boss!_ Blackjack called just before we sped away. I saw a hippocampus in the distance, but it saw us and headed in the opposite direction as fast as it could swim. Weird. Usually, all horses were as happy to meet me as Aughisky had been.

"Are there many hippocampi in the area?" I asked her.

_Not really. There used to be more, back when I first came to the area._

"Oh." I'd try to catch up with one of them later, and figure out what was wrong. "How far are we going? Is Manannan really still around? We weren't sure if the gods of Ireland had faded or not."

_Oh, no, the Tuatha de Danann are still here. Most of them went under the hills long ago, but they do ride out still, on the nights when their influence is strongest. You might have been able to see them on Samhain._

"What's Samhain?"

_All Hallow's Eve, I believe it is also called. The night when all of the humans celebrate the old Celtic festival._

Halloween. October 31. I didn't mind staying that long, if I hadn't figured out Rachel's prophecy before then.

Wait. "What do you mean 'might have been'? And how far are we going?"

_As far as we need to go. How are you still able to talk to me, Percy?_

"What do you mean? Poseidon's my dad. I'll always be able to talk to horses." Why hadn't she known that? Horses usually did. "If you didn't know who my father was, why did you bring me underwater?"

I felt her muscles tense underneath me.

That was the only warning I got before her head whipped around and lunged for my throat.

I got my left arm up in time, and she chomped on that instead. I tried to jump off, but found that I was stuck to her skin. Her neck looked a lot more like a snake's than a horse's now, and… "My, what big teeth you have, Grandma."

_What are you?!_

She gave up on penetrating my skin and started pulling instead, trying to rip my arm off. She didn't really have the leverage for it. I finally managed to get Riptide uncapped one-handed, and had a clear shot at her throat.

In one hit, I was free, and trying to avoid breathing in any of the golden dust floating around me. Man-eating Irish seahorse remains couldn't be healthy.

_Son of the sea god! You killed the aughisky!_

The hippocampus from earlier- a young chestnut stallion with gold scales on his fish half- had come back with reinforcements. They circled me, happily sailing through the dust. I expected them to start singing 'ding-dong, the witch is dead' any minute.

"Yeah, she picked the wrong victim. Was she giving you problems?"

_She hunted us, when she could not find food on land. We have called for help, but the mermen have been slow to respond. Poseidon is on Olympus, and his heir is overseeing the reconstruction of the cities on the other side of the ocean. Few others can speak to us._

_The icthyocentaurs sent a hunting party, but she shape-shifted and hid until they ran out of supplies and had to return,_ an older blue mare added. _We had heard that they would send Bill himself next, but there was a kidnapping, and he needed to go to Atlanta instead. We will tell them that he is not needed. You have our thanks, my lord. It was clever of you to trap her._

"No problem. I'm sorry about your losses." I decided not to tell them it hadn't been deliberate, and that she'd just happened to pick a victim that was undrownable and invulnerable. "She mentioned something about the Tuatha de Danann and Halloween. Is that a big thing here? I'm following a prophecy that mentioned the 'waves of Manannan'."

The mare looked at the rest of the herd, to see if any of them would speak up, then said,

_I know nothing about 'Halloween', but the influence of the old sea god stretches throughout this sea._

That didn't narrow it down much. Well, it was a prophecy. It would come true one way or another, and probably not in any way I expected. If sailing around Ireland didn't help me figure it out, I'd head to the other islands touching the Irish Sea. I thanked the hippocampi, and then headed up to explain to Blackjack that his prospective girlfriend had been a carnivorous sea monster.

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I spent the next few weeks sailing generally clockwise around the island. The day after meeting my first Irish monsters, I visited Blarney Castle and kissed the stone just in case that particular myth was true too, but I was pretty sure I hadn't magically gotten any better at speaking. I did get some good pictures of the castle that kept Annabeth and my mom happy.

I tended to focus more on the natural attractions- Blackjack, Mrs. O'Leary, and I hiked through mountains and forests, flew over the Kerry Way, and visited the Cliffs of Moher. The monsters I saw were mostly ones I'd fought before, with some local flavor thrown in; once when I was dozing on the bank of the River Shannon after a drakon encounter in the center of the country, a newt tried to crawl down my throat. It had some way of keeping victims asleep, because I didn't wake up and spit it out until Blackjack kicked my head. Riptide hit it instead of just passing through, so it must have been something mythical and not just a suicidal newt.

I didn't think I was seeing everything around me, though. Unless a monster actually attacked me, I might not see it through the Mist. There were times when I was wandering through the forest when I heard giggling or whispers of ' _Roman'_ , or maybe saw movement out of the corner of my eyes that never actually turned out to be anything when I turned to look. It didn't ever seem hostile, unlike the monsters I'd summoned with a phone call, so I didn't bother any of my watchers until I actually caught one of them on the _Firefly_.

I was in Bundoran, a seaside town in the northwest of the Republic of Ireland. I'd been moored in the area for a week and a half, which made it the longest I'd stayed still since my birthday party. This was mostly because I'd come at the start of the surfing season. Apparently, winter storms made good waves.

For the full humans on the beach, wetsuits were required. Being able to feel your limbs was not.

I'd wanted to learn to surf for years, and had never gotten the chance in New York City or Camp Half-blood. It turned out that it came just as easily as sailing, but for all the wrong reasons- the first time my teacher Richie commented on how balanced I was, I realized that it was because I'd been using the water underneath me to hold up the board. After taking a couple of lessons just to make sure I knew the basics, I went out alone and focused on _not_ using the wave to stabilize me, until I got to the point where I was able to stand and ride the waves without using my heritage as a crutch.

Except to summon the waves, of course. I wasn't above cheating when it made everything more fun. Whichever beach I happened to be on was always the best surfing spot; Richie and his friends called it beginners luck and had taken to following me around after I picked up my rented board from their shop each day.

I'd dropped my surfboard off again and was heading home when I felt something new jump onto the _Firefly_ and broke into a run. By the time I got there, the intruder had gone down into the bilge, the compartment running along the bottom of the ship where the two sides met at the keel. On most ships, the bilge was where water and other liquids collected over the course of the voyage, and was usually pretty disgusting. The _Firefly_ didn't take on any water I didn't want to be there, though, so my bilge was just another hold; it was where I had my fresh-water tank and hot-water heater and where I'd been keeping most of my non-perishable supplies.

I hopped down the ladder by the small washing machine (I'd put it in the hold that used to be the powder magazine, but hadn't needed a clothes dryer since I was twelve) and flicked on the lights. I had to bend almost double and watch my step; there wasn't more than five feet of room at the highest point, and the keel was a trip hazard.

Nothing looked out of place. That didn't mean anything. I could feel the monster, and I couldn't trust my ability to see through the Mist on this island.

I wandered as casually as I could through the hold, fiddling with the pen in my hand. When I passed an innocent-looking bag of oats, I uncapped it, dropped to my knee, and swung in one practiced motion. I stopped just a hair away from the center of the bag.

"Drop the Mist."

"Mist? What Mist? 'Tis as clear as day in here, lad."

The thick Irish brogue came from behind me. I wasn't fooled. "Drop it, or I decide I don't care what you're looking for and just worry about sweeping up the dust."

A can of Chef Boyardee sailed at me from where the voice had come from. I dodged it without looking back and pressed Riptide in a bit harder. "Last warning."

"All right! All right!" The bag of oats rippled and dissolved, and the voice started coming from in front of me. "Just… just back that thing away a bit, would you?"

I stared at the little man in front of me. He was wearing high-heeled brown shoes with buckles, long blue stockings, an apron, and a red jacket and nightcap. He had curly reddish-brown hair and a thick beard, and his large red nose and bloodshot eyes said that he was about as much of a stranger to alcohol as Mr. D was.

Okay, I knew I was in Ireland, and maybe I should have seen this coming, but this guy was not something anyone would chase after for his Lucky Charms.

"Please tell me you're not a leprechaun."

He immediately puffed up in indignation, making his two-foot-nothing height look even more comical. "Of course I'm not a leprechaun! Do I _look_ like a blasted shoemaker, boy? Do I look like I go prancing around granting wishes and hiding away pots of gold?"

He looked like if he'd ever had a pot of gold, he'd spent it on beer long ago. "What are you then?"

"A clurichaun, of course!"

"Is 'clurichaun' the Irish word for 'drunken leprechaun'?" I asked.

" _I am no' a leprechaun!_ " He levitated a foot in anger, and the bags of oats he'd been standing on started going up with him, before I concentrated a bit and the bags fell back to the ground. I pressed Riptide in a bit closer just to remind the guy that he was breaking and entering and that I still had him at swordpoint.

He blinked at me, startled out of his anger. "How did you do that? And how did you see through my Glamor?"

"This is my ship, and I can feel everything on it. I knew as soon as you came on board. The Mist doesn't matter here." And he smelled like a brewery. I wouldn't have had much trouble even off the _Firefly._

"Humph." He settled back down, sulking. "A son of Neptune, I suppose? We don't see many Roman demigods here these days. I'd never heard they could control ships."

I frowned, distracted by the Roman name for my father. "He told me once that he prefers to go by Poseidon. And why do you all keep calling me Roman? The gods were Greek first."

"He'd been Neptune for centuries by the time Patrick came, demigod, and the missionaries were from Rome. Neptune, Poseidon, it's all the same to us."

Even I'd heard of St. Patrick. They had a holiday for him and everything. "Wait, the _Catholic_ missionaries? I thought the gods didn't worry about metaphysics!"

"Meta-whats?"

"Never mind." I shook my head. "Old joke. Why would the missionaries matter?"

The clurichaun snorted. "'Tis one of the great ironies of Western civilization. They come preaching one god, and a thousand more follow behind without them noticing. The Roman Empire came to Britain, but didn't make it to Ireland before Rome fell. The Christian missionaries did more to bring the Roman gods here than anything else."

"What about your old gods, though? I met an aughisky that said that the Tuatha de Danann were still around. What about Manannan mac Lir and Morrigan?"

"Most of them stay in the hills these days, or on the Blessed Isles. Some have faded. Manannan had it easier than most of the gods of the land; the sea doesn't care about the laws and philosophy of humans. Neptune leaves the current management in place after a hostile takeover. Your pantheon has many minor water gods, and as long as he has power over a sea, he doesn't care if a _native_ god also has influence there." The little man spat the word 'native' out like it was an old grudge.

I had no information on the old Irish pantheon. For all I knew, they cared even less about humans than the Titans did. But I was still kind of glad to hear that my dad didn't routinely drive sea gods into retirement.

"I'm from the US, though, and I haven't seen any native sea gods or monsters there." Nereus, Triton, various Naiads and sea nymphs… even the spirits of the East and Hudson had been basically Greek river gods.

"Oh, well, that's different, isn't it? America's the heart of the West, where Olympus' influence is strongest. England was over-run by your gods, back in the bad old days when Olympus was in London and Apollo never set on the British Empire. They still haven't recovered over there. I haven't heard tell of Robin Goodfellow, the puck o' the hills, in a good two centuries. He may have faded entirely."

"What about Morrigan?" He might not like 'Romans', but he definitely liked the sound of his voice. I'd take advantage of that if I could.

"Ah. That one," he sniffed. "Such fine Folk don't exactly go around telling the Little People what they're up to, you know, but I suspect she's still around. I don't think we can pin all the blame for the Troubles on your Mars."

"What about Morrigan's children?"

That finally seemed to clue him onto the fact that I wasn't asking from idle curiosity anymore, and he gave me a beady stare. "Why d'you want to know?"

I figured it couldn't hurt to tell him. "I'm here because of a prophecy. The only lines that talk about the location say 'On the waves of Manannan mac Lir/ where the children of Morrigan breed.' A friend told me that meant crows, but I haven't seen any since I got here."

"Ah, well, Morrigan's crows can be tricky to find, to be sure. I'll show you, if you put away your sword."

"Really? Thanks!" I said cheerfully, and capped Riptide.

He looked started for a second, like he couldn't believe that had worked, and then darted up the ladder faster than my eyes could follow, yelling "Hah! Sucker!"

Since I was down there anyway, I tossed a couple of bags of dog kibble up through the hatch, and followed it up with a fifty-pound bag of oats. I took my time hauling them up to the top deck.

"Get away! Get away, you blasted dog!"

The clurichaun was wrapped in a coil of rope and hanging upside-down at eye level from the main mast. He looked like some kind of avant-guard piñata. Mrs. O'Leary was lying down and sniffing him. As I hauled up the kibble, she started channeling her inner cat, and pawed at him until he started spinning around and wailing.

I figured I'd made my point, and took pity on him. "Mrs. O'Leary! Here, girl! Dinner!"

She barked and abandoned her new toy in favor of her food bowl. I'd finally managed to train her to move carefully on the ship; she was more than a quarter of the total length of the _Firefly_ , and I'd had to use the waves to stop us from capsizing more than once, but she could eat and sleep on board as long as we were close to land. For longer trips I'd still have to send her back to Camp Half-Blood, but I was trying to avoid doing that too often; when I'd called her across the Atlantic after visiting Blarney Castle, it had tired her out so much that she'd slept for an entire day and hadn't wanted to shadow-travel herself between the land and ship for another week.

_Boss. You caught a leprechaun._ Blackjack came up and stopped the spinning with his nose.

"He's a clurichaun."

_What's a clurichaun?_

"No idea. We didn't get that far. Hey, Lucky- can I call you Lucky?"

"No!"

"Great, thanks. Lucky, what's a clurichaun, and why'd you come on board?" I poured a few cups of the oats into Blackjack's trough, but he was more interested in peering at our visitor.

Lucky sighed and gave up trying to magic the ropes open. "Clurichauns are winery guardians. I was looking for your liquor."

_Guarding it by making sure no-one but him gets it, it smells like,_ Blackjack commented.

"Yeah, I noticed," I agreed. Lucky didn't react to Blackjack's words; it looked like he couldn't understand horses. "I'm only eighteen. Why would you think I even had any?"

"Eighteen's old enough in Ireland! A rich boy with a private yacht- why _wouldn't_ you have a good stash?" Lucky asked indignantly.

"A _rich boy?_ " I blurted, and then thought about it for a second and realized for the first time what I'd think if I saw an eighteen-year-old with his own ship who was sailing around the world for fun, without really worrying about money. I'd decide he was… a rich brat. Just like the ones at Yancey Academy, only all grown up. I'd assume his parents were loaded and he had a vacation home somewhere in the Bahamas.

I'd rebuilt the _Firefly_ with my own hands and had gotten a lucky haul once, but just the thought that I might look like that from the outside was disturbing.

I sighed and moved the rope so Lucky was right-side up, although I kept him in the air. I'd kind of lost my taste for pressing him for information. He probably thought he was some kind of Robin Hood, stealing the booze from the rich and giving to himself. I'd had that same thought sometimes as a kid. It was hard to be on the outside looking in.

"Alright. There's nothing in my holds, but you want alcohol, and I'm legal here. If you tell me about Morrigan's crows I'll let you go and buy you a drink."

He peered at me suspiciously. "D'you swear on your river?"

Awareness of that custom probably hadn't taken too long to cross mythologies. "Yes. I swear on the Styx."

Thunder boomed, and Lucky cackled. "There's one now!"

I looked where he'd tilted his head. There was a pale bird pecking at a discarded food wrapper on the dock, with black wings and tail and a black cap on its head. I vaguely remembered seeing them all over Ireland in the last few weeks.

_It's white_ , Blackjack pointed out.

"Grey, I'd say, but yeah, that's not a crow."

Lucky was still chortling. "'Tis a corbie. The grey crow, the hooded crow, the favored shape of the Morrigan. You'd have to go to _England_ to find a black crow, demigod! Pay up!"

Okay. Well, that wasn't going to narrow down where I should look. I was back to wandering around Ireland, it looked like. I let him drop to the deck.

"Thanks. Pick your poison."

His expression fell so fast it was funny. "You're _thanking_ me?"

I shrugged and leaned against the rail. "I didn't know that, and I've done much stupider things for less useful information. Unless you changed into a killer whale, you couldn't really compare. So, yeah, thanks."

And getting annoyed about it would only make him happier, of course.

He shoved off the ropes with a grumble. "A free piece of advice, demigod. Do not thank the Little People. It says that the transaction is complete, and that you'll forget about the favor soon. It's rude, and means they'll leave."

"And just when we were getting along so well. Wine, whiskey or beer?"

"Whiskey. Old Bushmills."

Half an hour and a trip to a local store later, I found Lucky giving a detailed explanation to Blackjack and Mrs. O'Leary about why he despised leprechauns.

"And the rainbows! Where did the _rainbows_ come from? They're shoemakers! And now all the humans think they live at the end of the rainbow! They get all the good press!"

Mrs. O'Leary whined and rested her head on her paws.

"Yes, that's right. Good dog."

I wrapped my arm around the rope that snaked down from the mast and let it pull me on deck; I didn't usually bother with the boarding ramp when I was alone. "I'm back."

I handed Lucky the bottle. I had the vague feeling that I'd become an enabler, but an oath on the Styx was an oath on the Styx.

He raised his bushy eyebrows as he pulled it out of the brown bag. "Sixteen-year single malt. Not bad."

I shrugged again. "I wouldn't know. It was what they had."

"And that means you're wasting your visit to the Emerald Isle." He hesitated, and looked back and forth from me to the $60 bottle, then visibly made a decision. "It's a generous payment. Killer whales, you say? That sounds like a story worth a drink."

Lucky produced two shot glasses out of nowhere, levitated the cork out of the whisky, and had poured two generous shots before I could blink.

"I wouldn't want to deprive you." The drinkers in my life were Gabe and Mr. D, and I didn't really want to mimic either of them.

"Kind of you, but it would be terrible manners to drink without offering you any!"

I took the glass he levitated towards me, more to be polite than anything else.

_You're being peer-pressured by a drunken leprechaun,_ Blackjack remarked. I could see him snickering into his trough. Traitor. I took a tentative sip, and choked as it burned on the way down.

"So who turned into a killer whale?" Lucky prompted me, taking a generous gulp of his own and sighing in satisfaction.

I left out the bad parts (Annabeth missing, Bianca dead, Zoe knowing she was walking towards her own death, Bessie possibly being used to destroy Olympus…), and summarized the setup.

"… and Nereus was a shape-shifter, so when he was trying to get away he shifted into a bunch of different animals, including a seal and a killer whale. He couldn't drown me, and when he turned into an eel I started tying him into a knot, and he finally just gave up and told me to ask the question. I had to choose one, and I decided to ask him where the monster Artemis had been hunting was. And he pointed at the baby sea-cow that Blackjack had brought me to save a week earlier, and that had been following me ever since."

Lucky burst out laughing and poured himself a second shot of whiskey. Even I had to smile. Enough time had passed to dull the edges, and it _was_ a pretty ridiculous story. If it had started and ended there, I would probably be laughing about it with him.

I finished my glass and handed it back to the clurichaun. I didn't thank him, since we were apparently friends now. (And my first drinking buddy was an Irish fairy. I wasn't sure how this had become my life.)

He drained his own glass a second time and made them and the bottle disappear. "A good tale. You're not bad, for a rich Roman demigod. Swing by Banoran again when you get a wine cellar, and I'll guard it for you."

I rolled my eyes at the description as he darted over the side of the _Firefly_ and disappeared into the darkness of the evening.

SotWS_SotWS_SotWS_ SotWS_ SotWS_ SotWS_ SotWS_ SotWS_ SotWS_ SotWS_ SotWS

**_October 31, two years after the Second Olympian War_ **

Halloween found us at the Giant's Causeway, in Northern Ireland. It had sounded like a good place to look for Irish myths. According to the visitor's center, it was either the remnant of a bridge built by the giant Finn McCool so he could cross the ocean to fight another giant in Scotland, or a 60-million-year old volcanic formation of interlocking basalt columns.

I preferred the giant story, personally.

"Ready for something to eat, Blackjack?" It was only about five, but it was already nearly dark; I needed to feed the dog. I stuffed the map and brochure from the visitor's center into my backpack and traded the sweater I'd bought in Donegal for a heavier jacket as the wind picked up.

_Always, boss. Let's just get away from the humans._

Blackjack had been disgruntled ever since he realized that the Mist was making him and Mrs. O'Leary look like a matched pair of large black Labradors. I'd had to get leashes for them.

"The Mist made Mrs. O'Leary look like a poodle once. Do you think I could make that happen again?"

_Sure, make fun of the horse._

I laughed, and called out "Mrs. O'Leary! Here girl!"

My dog came bounding up from where she'd been sniffing a much smaller collie, who for some reason was not absolutely terrified of the huge hellhound. I mounted Blackjack as soon as we were far enough away that no-one would call me out on what probably looked like dog abuse, and we started back to Bushmills, the closest town, where the _Firefly_ was docked.

We had just passed a sign saying we were 2 kilometers from the town when Mrs. O'Leary suddenly started barking wildly. I drew Riptide, but nothing jumped out of the dark at us after she stopped.

"Do you think she scared it off?" Mrs. O'Leary was as large as a garbage truck and louder than an artillery round; whatever she heard might have sensibly decided to find an easier meal.

Blackjack didn't answer.

"Blackjack?"

_Do you hear that?_

I listened. They both had better hearing than mine, but if that wasn't just ringing in my ears from the barking… "Geese? A flock coming closer?"

_I don't think those are geese, boss._

I listened harder. It was approaching fast. "Dogs."

Over the sound of the baying, I heard a hunting horn.

_Hunters!_

Blackjack spread his wings and turned to take off.

_Tell the dog to get in the shadows. We've got to get out of here!_

"Stop! We can't outfly this."

_I can outfly anything._

I felt the same thing he did. A whisper of

_-escaperunflyflee -_

that the horn and the cries of the pack had called up from the parts of myself that I never liked to look at too closely. I was also pretty sure that doing what the hunters wanted would be a bad idea.

I hopped off Blackjack.

_Have you lost your mind? Get on!_

Blackjack weighed at least a thousand pounds more than I did; if he wanted to take off there was no way I could stop him physically without hurting him. He wouldn't leave without me, though.

"They'll chase us if we run."

_They'll kill us if we don't!_

His skin was quivering under my hand, and his eyes were rolled as he started backing up. I stayed next to him, with one hand on his shoulder, and tried to keep my voice soothing as the baying got louder.

"Calm down. They won't notice us if we don't run."

_Boss? They noticed us._

I looked up. A pack of white hounds with red ears was running far over our heads. Behind them came the hunters. They were dressed in anything and everything, ranging from almost no clothing to the full plate armor of a medieval knight. Some of them looked human, some of them hadn't bothered to try- they had antlers, or shone with an inhuman beauty, or were so repulsive that I wasn't able to look at their faces for long. They were all mounted on horses that ran on air without any wings.

The leader of the hunt was looking down. He had a pale face and black hair, and was riding a horse as black as my own. Mrs. O'Leary, still next to us, barked a challenge again, and the white dogs bayed an answer. I uncapped Riptide, and stood my ground. Blackjack reared and kicked out his front hooves, finally past the 'flight' part of the adrenaline rush.

They were looking for prey. If we ran, they would hunt us down. That wasn't how I was going to die.

The huntsman laughed. It wasn't even close to human- it sounded a lot more like the calls of his dogs. He raised his horn again, and blew.

_-ridehuntchase_ _**come** _ _-_

The call sang through my soul. I'd vaulted back on Blackjack before I realized what was happening as the dog pack changed direction and raced down towards us. My own hellhound howled in delight and turned to run with them.

The message was clear. Hunt or be hunted. We'd already made the choice.

"Let's go."

The first rider touched ground and raced past us. Blackjack stretched his legs to keep up as we fell in with the rest of the riders. I wound up next to a dark-haired man on a light grey horse. He was fully clothed and wearing a breastplate, and looked mostly human under the streetlights, although his cloak couldn't seem to decide what color it wanted to be. It shifted from misty grey to purple to sea-green as I watched.

We weren't following the road for long; after a minute, the hounds angled up into the air again, looking for something to chase. Blackjack didn't have the room to spread his wings, but it didn't make a difference; he and Mrs. O'Leary were running on thin air just as easily as the other animals.

I couldn't say how long we were running for, but it must have been at least an hour. Blackjack kept up with the hunt easily, although we were running at a speed far faster than he'd ever managed on the ground.

I hoped this wouldn't come back to bite him later. The Mark of Achilles let me do the same thing, but I collapsed afterwards.

Mrs. O'Leary's barking became a lot more excited. She'd picked up on something, and took the lead. The other dogs let her. I knew enough about dog packs to know that wasn't normal, but although they were large for normal dogs she was still big enough to make them all look like puppies.

I was just glad it was Mrs. O'Leary that had caught the scent. She liked humans; she wouldn't follow anything I wouldn't want to hunt.

" _REEEEET!"_

I took that back.

_Oh no,_ Blackjack groaned. _It can't be. Bad dog! BAD DOG!_

If the Clazmonian Sow and the Erymanthian Boar had ever gotten together, their kid might have looked something like the dark-colored boar rooting through a newly destroyed barn underneath us. It was huge- not as large as the Erymanthian Boar, but still probably a good fifteen feet tall, and as long as Mrs. O'Leary. Its tusks were bigger than I was, and I didn't like the look of the pale liquid dripping from its mouth.

"At least it doesn't have wings this time."

_Everything we've seen tonight has been able to fly, boss. What makes you think the pig can't?_

The lord of the hunt blew his horn, and the pig turned and ran. Mrs. O'Leary and her new friends angled down and hit the ground running; the rest of the hunt landed just as gracefully.

The boar headed west first; we wound up jumping over the wall of Derry, which I'd passed through earlier in the week. The locals had told me I should stay for Halloween, and I could see why- _everyone_ was in elaborate homemade costumes and out on the town.

Listening to them greet the giant pig stampeding across the bridge over the River Foyle with cheers and cries of 'the _sluagh!_ ' and 'Wild Hunt!' was the weirdest part of the night so far. The Mist was thinner tonight, or maybe wasn't working at all. Their own expectations were letting them see what was actually happening.

The adults would think we were an unusually realistic part of the Halloween parade. The children would remember the Wild Hunt until they grew old enough to dismiss the fairy tale that had ridden down the street in front of them, and would look back and laugh at how naive they had been as kids.

I hoped some of the kids I saw hiding behind their parents would remember the human in jeans and a jacket riding a black horse with folded wings, and someday wonder what he had been doing there.

The boar turned south when we got outside of the city limits, and we ran until we hit the Sperrin Mountains, which I'd hiked through two days ago. The dogs brought the pig to bay against a steep rise in the hill, and four of the riders in front dismounted to get closer as the dogs started circling it to harass the flanks. Two of them had boar spears, and two of them only had swords.

One of the white hounds managed to get a good bite on a hind leg, but that just made it mad. It charged the hunters and trampled the spearmen before they could react. As they disappeared in flashes of golden light, the swordsmen attacked from both sides, and it made a break for the riderless horses. They dodged, and in the confusion it broke out of the ring of hunters and was off again.

"It's smart. Smarter than the sow was." Smart enough to identify the spearmen as the bigger threats, at least.

Mrs. O'Leary bounced past us, clearly having the time of her life, and the rest of the dogs followed her. The lord of the Hunt waited for the swordsmen to mount, and sounded his horn as they rode out. I jumped off of Blackjack and grabbed the boar-spears; it might make me more of a target, but I'd still take a six-foot reach over a three-foot one.

The first thing I noticed about them was that they weren't bronze. They were much darker, though not quite as dark as my Stygian Iron whistle or Nico's sword, and they gave off the same soft glow that Riptide and other Celestial Bronze weapons did. They were unornamented and functional, with a razor-sharp spearhead that extended outwards at the base to form kind of a cross-guard.

_You know we're not just going to disappear if that thing hits us, right?_ Blackjack asked as I swung back on and he started galloping.

"I know. Be careful."

_Easy for you to say._

"What happened to 'I can outfly anything'?"

He snorted. _We're on the ground now, if you hadn't noticed._

We followed the dogs to a huge lake- probably the Lough Neagh, the largest lake in Britain, which I hadn't visited yet. I hoped we'd corner the pig again, but when we got to the shore it was already a half a mile away and swimming through the water almost as quickly as it had been running.

On the plus side, though, we probably didn't have another flying pig on our hands.

Mrs. O'Leary and the rest of the pack bounded into the air, but I had a different idea. If we were close to the water, I'd prefer to stay there.

"Stay on the lake, Blackjack. Try to catch up with it." I'd kept the War Chariot on the water when Clarisse had her driving test on her fifteenth birthday. That had been years ago, and I was much more powerful now; keeping a single pegasus on the water's surface would literally be child's play.

He didn't question me, just headed straight for the water's edge when the rest of the hunt jumped up and followed the dogs. Only one rider followed us- the dark-haired guy from earlier, whose horse dashed over the waves as easily as Blackjack.

As we raced after the boar, I thickened the water around it, to let us catch up, but after just a second the water returned to normal and the boar surged forward again. The man- the _god_ \- riding next to us shook his head sharply.

No cheating allowed, apparently. For them, this was the same as when I refused to control the water to hold up my surfboard- they would give the prey a chance.

As potential prey, I appreciated that. As the only mortal rider in the Hunt, not so much.

We cut down the lead, but it still had a head start on us when it surged out of the water and headed southeast. I zoned out somewhere between the lake and the Mountains of Mourne; I hadn't ridden this hard or this long before, and didn't want to ever again. I barely noticed the mountain range I'd heard sung about in half-a-dozen pubs and diners around the country.

I started paying attention again when the hounds cornered the boar again, this time against an outcrop at the top of one of the higher mountains. It didn't give the hunters in the front time to dismount this time, though, and just pushed through the thinnest part of the semicircle and headed for the sea.

I didn't have a watch, but we probably hit the coast at around four in the morning; we'd been travelling across Northern Ireland the entire night. I felt better as soon as I felt the ocean spray. Like before, the water god (Manannan, probably, unless there were other Irish gods around with the same skill set) and I were the only ones to run on the surface of the ocean. When we hit land again a couple of hours later and joined up with the rest of the riders, I knew it couldn't last much longer; the boar was getting pretty tired, but so were our horses.

Blackjack had tripped twice. Over waves. I didn't know that was possible.

We didn't have to chase it far before it crashed through a stand of trees that led out to a cliff. Mrs. O'Leary and her new friends spread out around it as a murder of the hooded crows Lucky had pointed out were startled into flight.

The leader of the Wild Hunt gave a sharp whistle and called all of the dogs back, then got off his horse for the first time. Everyone else followed him and spread out around the boar, which looked around at us in fury. Even I could tell the hunt was pretty much over. It might take a few of us with it, but it wasn't in any shape to go much farther.

"Stay back, Blackjack," I whispered. He'd done enough tonight. The sky was lightening around us, and he'd been running since just after sunset.

_You too, boss. Don't be a hero. Let the immortals take down the monster pig._

I meant to. I really did.

It didn't work out that way, of course. The story of my life.

The hunters with the longer spears went in first, and distracted it while a swordswoman attacked its right flank. She drove it hilt-deep, and the boar squealed and turned around to crush her. While it was occupied, two spearmen charged forward and stabbed it in the stomach, but only one of the spears actually did damage; the other just scratched it.

The boar squealed _"REEEEEEEEET!"_ again and swung its tusks, sending both spearmen tumbling before trampling them, bringing the total body count of the night up to five.

The hunt leader ran forward, grabbed one of the tusks, and swung up to get within striking range of a vital spot as he drew his dagger. The boar swung its head and sent him flying, but that didn't save its eye.

I've never heard a more terrible scream.

I had been hanging back through all of this. I don't usually feel bad about killing monsters, especially ones that had destroyed buildings, but the call of the Hunt had faded sometime before we hit the coast and I didn't really want to stab it. This could easily have been us.

My sympathy died when the pig saw Mrs. O'Leary. She had retreated with the rest of the pack and was sitting panting behind the hunters. The boar was half-blind, and I guess she was the biggest target. Maybe it wanted to pick on somebody its own size.

It ignored the spears surrounding it and made one final, last-ditch charge through the hunters. My dog wasn't quite fast enough. The huge boar gored her in the side, and ran over her when she fell with a yelp.

I'd always thought that the phrase 'seeing red' was an exaggeration. It wasn't. A haze of red literally fell over my eyes as the boar turned back to finish the job.

"Stay away from my dog!"

I was still holding the two boar spears. I sucked at archery, but I'd always gotten decent grades at javelin throwing at camp. A boar spear wasn't anywhere near as aerodynamic as a javelin, but it was all I had. I sent a silent prayer to Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, and threw.

I was right on target. It hit the boar in the chest with enough force that it was buried up to the wings just below the spear head.

That wasn't enough to kill the thing. I was starting to wonder if anything _would_ be. Every weapon these hunters carried was meant for much smaller game, and although probably any of them could destroy it with a thought, none of them were going to. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the hunt leader raise a hand to stop any of the others from coming closer. The Tuatha de Danann just watched, waiting to see the confrontation play out.

It didn't matter to them that if Mrs. O'Leary dissolved into dust because of their stupid game she wouldn't come back for years, or that she might forget everything and become a vicious monster. That she might never be the dog I loved again. They didn't care.

These gods and their rules could go to Tartarus. The boar was going to die.

"Come on!" I yelled at it, and charged.

I had made it angry, at least, and it focused on me while Mrs. O'Leary limped away. It swung its tusks, trying to clothesline me, and I tucked and rolled through its legs. A bit of the saliva landed on my jacket; it started dissolving pretty much instantly.

Instead of using the spear, I got out from under it and ran for the edge of the cliff. The boar followed me. I turned and braced the spear on the ground, holding it with both hands, like I was going to try to let the boar run into the spear. That would have been the right thing to do against a normal-sized pig.

Against this one? Suicide.

As soon as it was close enough, I got out of the way. Like I'd already noticed, though, the boar was smart. Even furious, half-blind, and bleeding ichor from half-a-dozen other wounds, it had figured out what I was trying to do, and had already slowed down enough to turn and crush me without going over the cliff.

I'd assumed it would. I just needed to get it close to the edge of the cliff. I couldn't use the water below us against the boar; Manannan had far more power over this sea than I did.

I couldn't use the water. But I was the son of the Earthshaker.

I slammed the spear into the ground point-first, and the cliff under us shattered.

SotWS_SotWS_SotWS_ SotWS_ SotWS_ SotWS_ SotWS_ SotWS_ SotWS_ SotWS_ SotWS

I was hit by three rocks on the way down; if I hadn't automatically twisted to guard my back, one of them would have hit my mortal spot. I got off lightly, but the boar made a much bigger target, and although it was a strong swimmer, that didn't make the water it landed on any softer.

A tidal wave surged up the cliff, we both went under the waves, and the boar was finally, _finally_ , still. Stunned, not dead, since it hadn't popped, but I could change that pretty easily. As I swum over the head, for the first time I noticed the glints of gold tangled in the dark crest of bristles that ran down its head and back.

It began to move groggily, and I hurried to its eyes. I was in the sea now, and had become much stronger. I drove the spear deep into the ruined eye, and it exploded into golden mud.

I hoped it would take a few centuries to come back.

As the water cleared, I saw a bunch of objects sinking to the bottom of the ocean, and pulled them to my hand. Some of them were the weapons that had been left in the boar, but the rest was the metal I'd seen in the bristles a minute ago- a comb, straight razor, and pair of scissors.

These were probably the most bizarre spoils of war I'd ever heard of.

I shoved the hair stuff in my backpack and used the remainder of my jacket to tie my spears and the sword and dagger together. I was about to go and climb up what was left of the cliff when I noticed frantic movement from below me. A fish, about the length of my arm. It looked like one of the rocks had landed on its tail, but that might have saved its life; a much larger rock was being propped up by the small one holding the fish down.

I sighed. I needed to check on Mrs. O'Leary, but since the wound hadn't been fatal immediately she would get better with food and rest, and this fish was trapped because I'd collapsed a cliff on top of it. I swam down.

The fish saw me and immediately started thrashing harder.

_No! Go away!_

That was weird. Most fish were all 'my lord' this and 'son of the sea god' that. I was pretty sure none of them had been afraid of me before.

"Calm down. I'm going to get you out of there."

_You're going to eat me!_

"I'm not," I said soothingly. "Relax. Think happy thoughts. Think of… I don't know. Kelp."

The big rock wasn't going to be easy to move without using the currents to help me, but when I reached out to the water experimentally, I found that I had as much control over it as I ever did.

_Wonderful,_ the fish moaned. _I'm doomed to be eaten by an idiot. This is so humiliating._

I looked at him. (Probably a him. I'd call it a him unless told otherwise.) "Idiot? I'm not the one trapped under a rock here."

_Did you not notice the murder of Morrigan's crows you galloped through on Manannan's home isle on the night when his control over these seas is greatest? I despise prophecies. They always find a way. I go to sleep secure in the knowledge that you're on a completely different island, and wake up to find that you've joined the Wild Hunt for the sole purpose of dropping a cliff on me._

I froze. "How do you know all that?"

_I am the Bradan Feasa, boy! The Salmon of Knowledge! Of course I would know of a prophecy that predicted my death!_

I'd actually heard of this fish, yesterday at the Giant's Causeway. "You're the fish that that giant burned his thumb on when he was cooking it, right? Finn McCool. He stuck his thumb in his mouth to cool it down, and because of that he had to suck his thumb whenever he wanted to know something."

_Fionn mac Cumhaill was no giant. Those legends have been debased. He was a hero, the great-grandson of Nuada, the god who ruled the Tuatha de Danann before his fading. He was one of Ireland's greatest warriors and generals, and used the knowledge he gained from my death far better than you ever will!_

"I'm still not going to kill you, you know."

The salmon- I decided to call him Bradan- ignored me in favor of continuing his rant. _This is what I have been reduced to! I was once sought after by every druid in Ireland! They spent years fishing the riverbanks on the mere chance that they would catch me! And now, everything that I am will go to a moronic son of Neptune!_

I decided to ignore the 'moronic' part. "My dad prefers to go by Poseidon, actually. And, if you don't want to die, why are you telling me all this when you're still trapped under a rock?"

Bradan froze, and shut up. I was happy about it, for the five seconds until I realized that I was getting proud of myself for outthinking a fish. I'd hit a new personal low.

I manipulated the water around me to form huge, solid hands, and flipped the big rock away. Without the extra weight, the salmon was able to pull his tail out from the smaller rock with a little wiggling. The seafloor was soft enough that he didn't seem to have broken anything.

_That's it? You're just going to let me go?_

"I don't eat fish. It's against my religion," I deadpanned. I pushed off the seafloor, but the salmon swum above me before I got to the surface.

_Stop. This makes no sense. Prophecies always come true._

"Look, I really need to make sure my dog's all right. If you actually want me to kill you, I'd suggest using that knowledge to find a therapist that can treat fish."

_She has already been healed. The sun is about to rise, and the hunt will depart. Stay in your father's realm until then, or you will be dragged along with them once more._

I might have judged the hunters a little harshly, then. Maybe they just didn't care about me, rather than not caring about my dog. "OK. Thanks."

_Do not thank me._ Bradan swam around me, looking at me contemplatively. _Why have you refused your destiny?_

"I'm not going to eat anyone I've had a conversation with. Did you ever think that maybe this prophecy isn't about you?"

_It is. Everything matches. Our druids and filids were seers and poets that chased after me; I was their dream. There are four crow nests still at the top of the cliff, left there from the breeding season this past spring. It is Samhain, when Manannan's power in these waters is at its greatest. And I have rarely met a human who needs knowledge more than you do._

I was getting really sick of being insulted by a fish. "And, even with all of your knowledge, rocks fell and you nearly died. It hasn't done you any good."

_I cannot prophesize; I can only see the prophecies of others. All of my knowledge concerns the present or the past, not the future. As for it being useless… your preferred method of study is to have someone else tell you what is going on. You came here knowing nothing about the gods of Ireland beyond two names. You mounted an_ each uisce _, and would be dead if you had not simply been immune to her attacks. You even knew that you would need to find crows, and instead of taking five minutes to look up the birds of Ireland, you needed to be told the obvious by a drunken fairy!_

I flushed. He sounded like every English teacher I'd ever had before Paul. They all seemed to think I should _like_ having to struggle to learn everything that came so easily to everyone around me.

"Why are you so mad at this? You should be glad I'm not just taking your information. Do you actually want to be eaten?"

He hesitated, and then somehow managed to give the impression of sighing even though he had no lungs. _No. No, I don't. Dying is very unpleasant._

"What's your problem, then?"

… _Better to be hunted than forgotten. I am not a monster, Percy Jackson, just a reincarnated fish. On the Blessed Isles, where the Tuatha de Danann dwell, there is a spring called the Well of Wisdom. Nine hazel trees surround the Well, and their nuts fall into the water. When a fish eats one hazelnut from each tree, I am reborn. I grow, live, and die as any normal salmon would. I have all of the knowledge of the world at the tips of my fins, and there is nothing I can accomplish with it._

_For four lifetimes now, I have reached my full growth and spawned without being chased by anything more than a fishing boat. I am no longer remembered by humans except for a throwaway sentence in a legend that has become almost unrecognizable. If I am no longer a dream for humanity to chase after, what purpose is there in my existence? When even a prophecy has no strength, why should there be a Salmon of Knowledge in this day and age?_

He was a _depressed_ rude mythical salmon. Wonderful.

"Well, you must have some other purpose, right? You're not defined by being hunted. Maybe Manannan could use some help, or you could go to the mermen? Just because the humans don't remember you doesn't mean you can't find something else to do."

_Mermen are Roman, and serve Neptune's heir. They also eat salmon, much like you eat cattle. Manannan may be an option, though._ It hadn't been much of a pep-talk, but at least Bradan seemed a little less likely to let himself fade as soon as I was gone.

"Great. Good luck with that. And, it looks like the sun's coming up, so…"

_Wait. Your prophecy…._

I rolled my eyes. "Don't worry about it. Prophecies are weird. I'm not choosing knowledge. Let's say the 'wise choice' is to not eat anything that talks back."

_It will do nothing to help with a journey, though. By eating me, you would have known everything you needed to know about your destinations._

"If I knew everything about where I was going, I wouldn't need to go there." That was obvious. Facts weren't everything, apparently. Score two for the ignorant demigod.

Bradan jerked and turned towards me. _What did you say?_

"What?"

_You would not need to travel there… yes. Yes, you're right. You do not need absolute knowledge. You need something to help you on your journey. I've never done it before, but theoretically, it should be possible…_

"Seriously, what are you talking about?"

_The choice is not yours. It is mine._

He started glowing, and then flicked his tail so hard that I thought he was having a seizure. A small scale fell off him and sailed towards me. He did that four more times.

_Place the scales on your tongue, your eyes, and your ears. I have put all of the knowledge of the world at your fingertips, son of Neptune, but you must first gain the wisdom to seek it out. No-one will give it to you._

He started swimming away, more energetic than he'd been since he'd been trying to get out from under the rocks. He jumped through the surface, and must have gone up ten feet before coming back under. I wondered if someone had dumped anti-depressants into the water.

_I will watch your journey with great interest, Percy Jackson! Farewell, and remember me!_

"Um, I will." Bradan was well out of earshot, but he'd know what I said. That had been… strange.

I shrugged. Well, a prophecy was a prophecy. I put one of the scales on my tongue, where it burned briefly before disappearing. The two I put on my eyes flared a bright white light that left spots in my vision, and the ones over my ears disappeared with a loud noise that left my ears ringing.

The sun was rising above the horizon when I surfaced. Instead of making the climb, I gathered up the discarded spears and swam around the cliff to a rocky beach. I walked out of the water, dried myself off, and nearly collapsed. It had been a long night.

"Son of Neptune. I hear you've been looking for me."

Unfortunately, the sea god I'd ridden with had waited, and was leaning against his grey stallion under the trees.

I got my first look at him in the daylight; his hair was a dark brown, with a few laugh-lines around his mouth and dark blue eyes, and looked like he was in his late thirties or early forties. Unlike many of the hunters from last night, he looked completely human.

I gave him an awkward bow. "Ah, you are Manannan, then?"

"They call me Manannan here and in Ireland, yes. And you?" There was something odd about the way he was speaking, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. He didn't have an Irish accent- maybe that was it. It was strange to not hear it after more than a month.

"Percy Jackson. And…"

I made a vague gesture towards his horse.

"Seafoam."

_Nice to meet you_ , the grey said cheerfully.

"You too. I wasn't looking for you specifically, Lord Manannan. I had a prophecy that said I would meet someone in your waters. And, where are we, exactly?" My coordinates when I was talking to Bradan had been 54, 5N and 4, 46W, but I was so tired I couldn't figure out where that was on the Irish Sea. We could have been in Scotland for all I knew.

He looked at me like I was an idiot. "The Isle of Man."

"…right." Sure, why not. "Is that just a lucky name?"

"No, I was the first ruler of this island, and have given it my protection ever since. They still honored me here long after your father gained power in this sea."

"Oh." I didn't really want him dwelling on my father. These guys already didn't seem to care much for demigods. To change the subject, I offered him the weapons I'd collected. "These belong to some of your hunters. Can you make sure they get them back?"

"You used the spears with more honor than their first wielders," he answered with an ironic smile, and only took the sword and dagger. "You may keep the weapons that killed the boar. Their owners will be glad to cede them to you."

_They'd already lost them. And when you slammed one down and took the cliff with you? You're not supposed to use your powers, but that was badass,_ Seafoam agreed. _They'd be laughed at if they asked for them back._

"Okay, if you're sure." I remembered not to thank them. The spear wasn't my weapon, but having extra monster-killing weapons on board couldn't hurt. Which reminded me… "What metal is this? It's not Celestial Bronze."

"Blessed Iron, our equivalent, and the only metal that was able to harm the Tuatha de Danann in old Ireland," he answered, shoving the blades into a small feather-covered satchel that had been hidden by his cloak. "Like so much else, that part of the legend has been warped by folklore. They remember only that we could be hurt by iron, and have forgotten the forging process, and exactly whose blessing they needed."

I winced. I hoped that not too many Irishmen had tried using normal iron on the local monsters. It would probably work about as well as throwing a bronze doorknob at an empousai.

"What about the hair stuff?" I took those out of my backpack. "Did the boar run off while a barber was working on him?"

"The Twrch Trwyth was once a human king, and kept his hair implements when he was transformed into a beast for his evil deeds." He took the straight razor and looked at the edge. "The kill was yours, and so the spoils of war go to you as well."

Hey, the boar had a name. My opinion of the 'spoils of war' must have shown on my face, though, because he laughed and handed back the razor. "Don't be so skeptical, demigod. The scissors will cut the strongest hair, the comb will untangle the worst snarl, and the razor will give a smoother shave than any other. When Ysbaddaden demanded these to trim his hair for his daughter Olwen's wedding, many men died to retrieve them."

"They died so someone could cut his hair?" Attacking the boar because he was destroying stuff, I could see, but just to get the scissors?

_Ysbaddaden was a giant. They have very aggressive follicles,_ Seafoam explained.

Manannan's lips twitched again at the look on my face. "He had a prophecy that he would die on his daughter's wedding day. He was hoping that her suitor would die in the attempt, or at least fail to meet his conditions for the wedding."

My reply was cut off by a distant bark and a huge body crashing through the trees. I remembered that they'd healed her, and tried to figure out how to say 'thank you' without saying the words. "The Salmon said that one of you healed her. I'm glad she's all right. I don't know what she'd come back as, if she died."

Mrs. O'Leary came bounding out of the woods. She looked tired, but wasn't hurt. She still had enough energy to give me an enthusiastic licking that I wasn't able to move fast enough to avoid. Blackjack trotted out of the woods behind my dog.

_Boss, you're back!_ _Who're they?_

"Lord Manannan, Seafoam, that's Blackjack, and this is Mrs. O'Leary," I introduced as I tried to dodge the tongue. "Down. _Down,_ girl. Sit."

_Manannan? Is your prophecy over, then?_

"Yeah," I answered. I finally got her to lie down, and used a front leg as a bench. "I met the Salmon of Knowledge, who gave me a gift. I'm not sure what it does yet."

"You're not?" Manannan asked. "You haven't noticed?"

"Noticed what?"

_Boss, what's he saying? Can you understand him?_

I looked from Manannan to Blackjack. "What do you mean?"

_He's not speaking English._

"Yeah he is." I hesitated, and actually listened to the words that were coming out of our mouths. "Aren't you?"

"I am speaking Manx Gaelic, son of Neptune. And so are you. Quite fluently. " The sea god raised an eyebrow. "You didn't realize?"

I'd only noticed that he didn't have an accent. Blackjack had understood me, and not him; probably because I was Poseidon's son. To test it, I shuffled in my backpack for the brochure I'd gotten at the Causeway yesterday, which had sections in a couple of different European languages. A few sentences later, I'd confirmed that I was able to read French and Spanish just as well as I read English.

(Which actually meant not all that well, but I wasn't going to complain about still being dyslexic.)

"Wow. He was right, that's going to be a huge help."

_So how did your prophecy tell you to find the Salmon?_ Seafoam asked casually.

The prophecy was pretty much complete now that I'd gotten the gift I needed to start a world tour; I owed Rachel big for this one. There couldn't be any harm in telling them. As I started speaking, I noticed that I'd switched back to English automatically, probably because the prophecy wouldn't rhyme in Gaelic. I'd have to see if I could translate stuff later.

" _On the waves of Manannan mac Lir_

_Where the children of Morrigan breed_

_The dream of the poets and seers_

_Shall offer the prize that you need._

_The choice between knowledge and wisdom,_

_Made well, is the choice that will send_

_The son of the sea on a journey_

_That continues for time without end."_

The god and his horse stared at me in silence for ten heartbeats. I counted.

Then Seafoam started laughing.

I'd heard horses laugh before- Blackjack liked a good joke- but never like this one. He was whinnying so hard that he was almost braying. If he were human he'd have had tears coming from his eyes.

"Enbarr! Control yourself!" Manannan snapped. I could hear the word he was actually saying now that I was paying attention- _Enbarr_ , the foam of the wave breaking on the shore, which the Salmon's gift had let me hear as 'Seafoam'.

His riders' words had no effect- the horse continued laughing, and once or twice choked out phrases like _'son of the sea'_ and ' _hunter!_ '.

_Seriously, stop. You sound like a donkey. You're giving horses everywhere a bad name,_ Blackjack told him.

That seemed to help Seafoam calm down, but then he looked at Blackjack and that set him off again with a nicker of ' _wave-runner!'._ He actually collapsed onto his front knees.

"Enough!" Manannan flicked his fingers, and Seafoam dissolved into little bubbles that flowed back into the ocean. I saw the horse reform a bit farther out and gallop away over the waves, still whinnying loudly. We stared after him while Manannan sighed and massaged his temples with one hand. I got the feeling we'd managed to give him a headache.

I was irritating gods in multiple pantheons. I had a gift.

_What was that about? What was so funny?_ Blackjack finally asked, breaking the silence.

Manannan shook his head and answered Blackjack in English. "Nothing. A cosmic joke. One that he just found out we may not be the butt of after all."

"I could use a good laugh." I didn't like the horse's reaction. There was nothing in our prophecy that was that funny.

"You had to have been there," he answered dismissively. I wasn't happy about it, but pressing a god for answers he didn't want to give was a good way to get turned into a guppy. I let the subject go.

"Well, Lord Manannan, it's been a pleasure, but we should really be getting back to the _Firefly_ and it's a bit of a flight, so if you'll excuse us…"

"It will not be as long a flight as you think," the sea god said with an odd expression on his face, and nodded out at the horizon.

I looked at the distant shape just visible through the morning mist, and realized that I could feel the parts of myself that made up the _Firefly_. I had a limited range, and couldn't feel my ship when she was more than a few miles away. "Oh. Thanks for bringing her."

_Uh, boss…_

"Do not thank me."

I turned my face away so he wouldn't see the eye roll. "Sorry. I'm glad to have her here, I mean."

He shook his head. "That taboo is a custom of the Little People, not of the Children of Danu. Do not thank me, because I did nothing. She came at your call."

"The Giant's Causeway is nowhere near here." It was more than a hundred miles, as the corbie flies. I'd called the _Queen Anne's Revenge_ to me once, but she had been much closer. The _Firefly_ would have had to set some sailing records, too- the Hunt hadn't even gotten to the coast of Ireland until a few hours ago.

He shrugged. "Nevertheless."

_You don't know your own strength, boss._

Well, I wasn't thirteen anymore. At least this was more useful than making volcanos erupt. I hopped off my makeshift bench and shoved Mrs. O'Leary's nose until she woke up. "Come on, Mrs. O'Leary. Breakfast. Go home, girl."

She whined and went back to the forest to find a shadow and travel back to the _Firefly_.

_Breakfast sounds good. So does dinner. And midnight snack. We missed them all,_ Blackjack complained as I mounted.

"We'll make up for it," I promised. I was as hungry as they were, and seriously needed a nap. I turned to say good-bye to Manannan, but he was gone.

No, not gone. Just moved. "He's on the _Firefly._ Let's go."

Despite his exhaustion, Blackjack couldn't have gotten us in the air any faster if he could still walk on it. The sea god was waiting next to Mrs. O'Leary when we landed, and was looking around with the same strange expression on his face.

"Welcome aboard."

He missed the sarcasm entirely. "Thank you. It's rare to see a ship of this type these days. You built her well; she'll take you far."

"She's a good ship." My irritation faded a bit; I was kind of a sucker for anyone who could appreciate what a beauty the _Firefly_ was.

"Yes, she is. I am our god of sailors, as well as the god of the sea. It's good to see young folk still interested." He rummaged around in the feathery man-purse that he'd stuffed the weapons into earlier, while I took the bag of kibble left up here from yesterday morning and dumped it into Mrs. O'Leary's bowl to keep her occupied.

"I am also the guardian of the Mists that surround and protect the Blessed Isles. None can enter without my invitation. Now, where did I put it…hah!"

He hauled a tree branch out of his man-purse and handed it to me. An actual tree branch, much larger than the bag it had come from. It looked like it was made of metal, with silver bark and leaves and nine tiny golden apples clustered along it, but the detail on it was more than even Hephaestus could have managed. It had been grown, not made, and was one of the most beautiful objects I'd ever seen.

"What's this?" I asked, turning it over.

_Ooh. Apples,_ Blackjack drooled.

"Your invitation, and your passport. It was my custom, when I was the only god in this sea, to allow the greatest mortal sailors of the day into the Blessed Isles. It is annoying that you are a son of Neptune, but you acquitted yourself well in the Hunt, and none would deny you welcome."

"You want me to visit your Olympus?" That seemed a bit suspicious. I was the son of a god that this guy didn't like. He didn't seem to be holding Poseidon against me, but that didn't mean that there wasn't a catch somewhere.

"Our home is more similar to the islands in your Underworld," Manannan answered. "The Isles are a paradise for mortals. You will not be touched by age or death. There is no fear, pain, or suffering, only happiness and plenty."

He sold it well. It might be interesting to visit, as a last stop before heading into the Mediterranean. "How long are you inviting us for?"

His lips twitched up. "Forever. You would be free to leave, but most who have tried have found that the years had passed like days without them realizing. They dissolved into dust when they touched the soil of their homeland."

And there came the catch. I wanted to go to the Isles of the Blest in the Underworld, yeah, but only _after_ I'd died three times. I handed him back the silver branch. "No thanks."

"Your afterlife has no paradise greater than the one I offer you. Do you understand what you are refusing?" He didn't seem offended, though. His smile actually got wider; I had the feeling he'd expected the answer.

My answering smile showed a lot of teeth. "It sounds like dying. I've got a prophecy that says I'll be traveling for the rest of my life. I'm just getting started."

"And is that your desire? To journey for the rest of your days?" he asked intently.

"That sounds great, yeah."

He laughed. It was delighted, and relieved, and happy. The sound had a little too much in common with Seafoam's breakdown earlier to make me comfortable.

I needed to start a stand-up comedy act. I'd be a hit with the entire Irish pantheon.

"So be it, then, and my blessing upon you, Percy Jackson."

He turned and placed the base of the silver branch against the foremast at a bit higher than head-level. A power reached out to me through the contact point, asking for permission. It was a warm, happy, growing feeling. I invited it in and let it burrow into my awareness of the ship. The branch fused with the mast, and stayed in place when he let it go.

Manannan pulled one of the golden apples off the branch and tossed it to Blackjack. Where the apple had been, a silver bud sprouted.

Blackjack crunched the apple and stamped a foot. _Boss, you need to try one of these. I've never eaten a better apple._

"And you never will, for the apples of Emain Ablach have no peer," Manannan told him. "A reward for your efforts last night, Wave-runner. When freshly picked, one apple is all the food needed for the day, and they will regrow overnight."

He looked back to me. "Should you change your mind, simply return to this spot and sail west. You will reach the Blessed Isles within a day, and I will ensure that you leave in a timely fashion."

Gods. Even when they weren't family, they were aggravating. "Was that a test, then? Why was that the correct answer?"

"A test…" Manannan said musingly. "Yes, I suppose you could call it that. There was no correct answer, only each person's choice. I would have made the other one, given the chance. The Isles have been my home for thousands of years. The prospect of leaving did not appeal."

_What do you mean? Why would you leave?_ Blackjack asked.

"We have our own seers, you know. They spoke of a son of the sea, a member of the Wild Hunt, a horse that ran on the waves, and a journey. Tell me, son of Neptune, what is my full name?"

"Manannan son of …" I trailed off. 'Mac Lir' meant 'son of the sea'. The slightly queasy feeling I'd had since Seafoam started howling with laughter at my prophecy intensified.

He smiled slightly. "Indeed. My father faded long ago; I have been the god of this sea for nearly as long as the Tuatha de Danann have lived here. I would have done my duty, and followed the prophecy, but I took no joy in it."

I took a slight step backwards. "Is that all they saw? Just that some guy who could make his horse run on the waves was going on a trip?"

"Of course," he agreed easily. Too easily. "What else would there be?"

"Nothing like, say, a choice that means that your islands will be saved or destroyed? Because I've had too many nightmares about that."

"No. Nothing like that. The only choice mentioned was in the prophecy you brought with you." He raised an eyebrow. "Why do you ask?"

"Bad experiences." I relaxed a bit. Not completely, but a bit. "It still might be about you. I'm not even Irish. Why would your seers be seeing anything about a trip I'd make?"

"Why, indeed. It will be interesting to see how far you go, Percy Jackson." Manannan rummaged around in his featherbag of holding again and pulled out a brochure and a couple of business cards. "Enjoy your stay on the Isle of Man. Some interesting things are happening on the island. There's a museum dedicated to me nearby, and when you go to Douglas I recommend stopping by this company. They're having an open house in two days."

I glanced at the information, and was about to ask why a sea god had suddenly turned to playing tour guide when he added, "I must go; Badb just challenged Lugh to a drinking contest, and that can only end in tears. We will meet again, Percy Jackson, when you next ride with the Hunt in these waters."

I dropped the brochure. "Wait, _what?_ "

"I'm sure I mentioned that already; try to keep up," he chided. "You passed your initiation with flying colors, and are now a member of the Wild Hunt. We don't normally recruit still-living mortals permanently, but no mortal has ever supplied their own flying horse and hellhound before, and you did deal the killing blow to the Twrch Trwyth, so an exception will be made. You're missing the after-party, of course, but there's always next time."

_Initiation_? Blackjack squawked, and then added, _What next time?_

"The Winter Solstice, probably, though we sometimes put it off until the first day of spring. Even if you're not sailing in the Irish Sea, you're free to join any of the other chapters of the Hunt. Most of the Celtic deities participate. They'll know when you're in the area and swing by to pick you up." Manannan was laughing at us again, I was sure of it. He knew damn well we'd just been trying to survive. "It is far easier to join the Hunt than it is to leave it, son of Neptune."

"You call that _easy_?" It came out as a strangled squeak. I coughed and tried again as I remembered my original problems with these guys. "Lord Manannan, do you normally hunt humans? Or demigods?"

He looked slightly offended. "We do not. There is no honor in pursuing the helpless. Mortals are rarely formidable enough."

_Good for us for not being helpless, then,_ Blackjack said weakly. _We're just that awesome._

"Yes, congratulations," the god agreed. "It was a Hunt to remember. Fair winds, Percy Jackson and Blackjack Wave-runner, and fare well!"

I looked away fast when he started glowing brightly. When Manannan was gone, I sat down heavily on the deck. I realized vaguely that I should probably be worrying more about this, but I couldn't really manage to work up the energy.

_We're not actually going through with that, right? I don't care how wild the after-party is if these guys go after the biggest monsters around._

"We'll be long gone by the Winter Solstice. This isn't a Greek thing; Artemis doesn't let guys in her Hunt," I reassured us both. "And if we run into one of these other chapters… well, at least they hunt as a group, right?"

_Look how well that worked out last night. And my hooves are going to ache for days._

"At least we got an apple tree out of it."

_Don't think that gets you out of finding the closest doughnut shop._

"I wouldn't dream of it." I finally worked up the energy to tell the hammock hanging from the mainmast to extend out to the foremast, and had ropes haul up some spare sailcloth to block out the sun. I'd done this fairly often on the way over the Atlantic, and had slept up here on some of the clear nights- and, twice, on the stormy ones, where I'd made a waterproof tent to keep the rain off Blackjack.

"Do you need anything else? Oats?" I was trying to stop myself from falling asleep, and I could tell Blackjack was too. Mrs. O'Leary was already asleep again, even though she'd only had a light meal.

_No. Manannan was right, one apple's enough. Eat one before you go to sleep, boss._ Blackjack had seen me push myself enough over the last couple of years to tell when I was about to collapse.

I hauled myself to my feet and grabbed one of the tiny apples off of the new branch on my foremast, and then had a thought and grabbed another. The small brazier Chiron had given me, with a part of the eternal flame from the campfire at Camp Half-Blood, was down in my small galley. I didn't know whether or not Artemis had helped with the thrown spear earlier, but it was usually safest to assume that the god you'd prayed to had answered your prayers. I went down the ladder and tossed one of the apples into the fire.

"Artemis."

I ate the other apple (and Blackjack was right- I'd never eaten a better one), brought a couple of blankets up to the deck, and slept for the rest of the day.

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I had nothing better to do, and ignoring the advice of a friendly god was a fast way to make them unfriendly, so I did visit the House of Manannan in the nearby town of Peel and learned more than I'd ever really wanted to know about the history of the Isle of Man. The day afterwards, I went to the open house he'd mentioned. The company, Excalibur Almaz, was dedicated to long-term commercial business and tourism in space. It turned out that the Isle of Man was a world hub for private space-faring companies. The tiny dependency of the British crown was the European nation most likely to return humanity to the moon, and was the fifth-most-likely in the world, after the US, Russia, China, and India.

"Lousy turnout," I observed at the warehouse where the company's recently-acquired Soviet-era space stations were being stored. I was alone; Mrs. O'Leary had already returned to Camp Half-blood in preparation for our departure for the Mediterranean in a couple of days, and Blackjack had dropped me off and left to look around the island some more.

"This event wasn't really well-publicized, I'm afraid. It was a last-minute thing, though we'll probably see more people wander by in the afternoon," the company chairman Arthur ('call me Art') told me. He was a balding white-haired guy in his mid-sixties, and was playing tour-guide to the first group, which looked like it was just going to be me. "Let's get started, shall we?"

I got my first look at the vaguely bell-shaped re-entry hulls as he ushered me through the door. They were clunky and about as attractive as the Twrch Trwyth. It didn't matter- their reason for existing was enough.

We walked around the re-entry capsules and the space station cylinders while he chattered about the Almaz program they had come from and the company's plans for them. I mostly tuned out the business information, but was a lot more interested in the long-term goals of sending a private voyage to the moon and of asteroid mining. He didn't miss that I'd turned away from the ships for the first time since I'd seen them.

"Interested in that, are you? Back in the Age of Sail, not all of the sailing expeditions and colonies were funded by the monarchies of the time. Private companies and interested parties funded ships as well. We're taking that as our spiritual example. Have you ever wanted to go into space?"

I shrugged. "All kids want to be astronauts, right? I went through that phase. Then I tried the space food at the Smithsonian."

He laughed. "Like everything else, the food has been improved with technological advances. Don't let that stop you."

"It'd be nice, yeah, but I can't fly."

"Ah. That would be a problem, yes," he agreed sympathetically. "A medical condition?"

"A genetic inability." A skydiving trip might be OK as long as Zeus wasn't paying attention, but a space launch didn't seem like the kind of thing he'd miss. And astronauts were usually pilots themselves- that much had stuck with me from that visit to the Air and Space Museum with my mom years ago.

"Well, don't give up just yet." He looked like he was trying not to smile. "You're still young. Who knows how far you'll go?"

He turned away and began chattering about the crew living arrangements on the space station. In a word: cramped. The tour took another hour, and I left the warehouse remembering that old dream for the first time in years.

I shook my head and put it behind me, and whistled to call Blackjack and get back to my own streamlined, beautiful, roomy ship. I'd spend tomorrow seeing a bit more of the Isle of Man with Blackjack, and head for the old lands the day after. There was so much I hadn't seen yet; this world was enough for one lifetime. I didn't need to chase after the impossible.

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**_August 11, five years after the Second Olympian War._ **

"That was Amaterasu-omikami," Apollo answered his sister grimly. "Sun goddess of Japan. Central deity of the Shinto pantheon."

Athena sat frozen in shock as several of the other Olympians let out cries of outrage. It could not be. Betrayal, from this source, was inconceivable.

"Treachery!" Zeus snarled. "Poseidon, what is the meaning of this?"

Above them, the amphitheater had settled into whispers of consternation. The few minor gods who had come to witness the hoped-for decision to open the gates of the mountain had found gossip of far greater interest. Openness, honesty- this was the legacy of Percy Jackson's demand, and it would come back to haunt him today. The news that the demigod that had bargained for their thrones was in bed with the leader of a rival pantheon would be around Olympus in minutes and in the ear of every god in the West as soon as the gates were open.

"My son is no traitor, Zeus!" Poseidon snapped back. "And I would _know_ the meaning of this, if I had been allowed to look in on him!"

Inconceivable, that she had judged his character so poorly. She could not have been so wrong.

"He's sleeping with the enemy, Poseidon. Quite literally." Hermes was gripping his caduceus so tightly his snakes were protesting. Athena knew he was fond of Percy, and this betrayal, so soon after his own son's, would hit doubly hard.

_Inconceivable_.

(adjective: impossible to comprehend or believe. She knew well what the word meant.)

"There is another explanation! We do not know what sent him to Japan; he may not have gone by choice." Poseidon looked like he was seconds away from summoning a deluge into the throne room. Zeus's own hand was giving off sparks. The mounting tension, paradoxically, gave Athena the impetus she needed to clear her mind.

Set aside the hurt pride; set aside the shaken faith in her own judgment. Re-examine everything she knew of Percy Jackson. Rebuild her analysis of his character from the ground up. Come to the logical conclusion.

"Oh, she invited him, and he accepted willingly," Apollo said with a bitter smile as he flopped back onto his golden throne. "She sounded quite fond of him. And Amaterasu doesn't like the West. At all. He must be good."

A betrayal from Percy Jackson remained inconceivable.

"Then he does not consider it a betrayal." Athena's calm voice cut through the clash of rising power. Her advice, though not always popular, was inevitably wise. That she spoke in defense of a son of _Poseidon_ would sway more of the undecided Olympians than a thousand testimonies from his friends on the council, the greatest of who were already indulging their hurt feelings.

Now at the center of attention, Athena continued, "Percy Jackson is loyal. It was his highest virtue and greatest flaw long before he bathed in the River Styx, which enhanced all that he was. Deliberate treachery could not occur to him."

"As you reminded us all too often in the war, his flaw is _personal_ loyalty," Artemis pointed out coldly, "which a lover might well command. Whether it is deliberate treachery or simply thinking with the wrong head scarcely matters."

"He still sacrifices to his father," Hestia said quietly. "And to some of the rest of you, once in a while, but consistently to Poseidon."

"He does," Poseidon confirmed. "Not since yesterday, but he has gone silent for far longer in the past when he was not near a fire. He still honors the gods as he was taught."

"Is that what they're calling it these days?" Ares drawled, picking at his fingernails with a knife. Athena judged him to be one of the few in the room who truly did not care one way or another; he was merely adding fuel to whatever fire he could.

"We lack the information we need to make a rational judgment." Athena directed her advice primarily at her father, who had dismissed his nascent lightning bolt and leaned back to listen to the debate, stony-faced. "We have removed ourselves from the world for too long. We do not know what sent him to Japan, or what could have caused Amaterasu's change of heart. Percy Jackson still has his part to play. Condemning him in haste would be unwise."

"Then go gain your answers," Zeus told her grimly, "and find how deep his offense runs."

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Athena appeared next to her daughter's current project, a gazebo for the Muses in their favorite garden. She had done an exemplary job in the rebuilding of Olympus; the battle damage had been cleared up and the emergency repairs finished in the first three months, and then she had dedicated herself to redesigning and rebuilding every building that had been affected. Two years ago, she had completed those projects and had turned to the requests for new structures, which had accumulated as the gods and immortals of Olympus saw the buildings she had designed.

"Annabeth." She did not raise her voice, but it echoed through the garden anyway. Annabeth's builders glanced her way, and her daughter jerked her head up and handed the blueprint to one of them.

"Mom!" Her favorite child jogged over to her. Athena was the most fortunate of the Olympians in that respect. When it became clear that their isolation on Olympus would extend for years, Athena had been allowed to transport her daughter directly to Olympus whenever Annabeth requested it out loud, as long as she swore not to discuss the affairs of the gods with her fellow demigods. Annabeth and the chariots of the Sun and Moon were the only exceptions to the otherwise rigid prohibition against travel out of Olympus.

There had been talk of sealing the breach, and keeping her on Olympus until the gates were opened, but Annabeth had declined to leave her friends and mortal life for so long, and Athena had argued against it in the council. All of the Olympians save Poseidon had assumed that Annabeth did not wish to leave Percy Jackson. Athena had stayed silent and allowed their misconception to continue, for it meant that Aphrodite had been her supporter and had swayed several of the male gods from indifference to Athena's side.

Poseidon himself had stayed out of the debate. Before the gates had closed, Athena had informed him that her daughter and his son would not become a couple, and had also warned him that if he took revenge on Annabeth for his son's lost chance at immortality, she would retaliate on Percy Jackson to the exact degree. She suspected that would not have stopped Poseidon if his son had been heartbroken, but they had both looked in on him when he was at home with his mother, and he showed no grief.

She had thought no more on it, and had merely forbidden Poseidon to interact with her daughter without her present. The three had only met four times in the last five years to finalize the plans for various building projects for Poseidon. The meetings had all been brief, and the topic of Percy Jackson had been carefully avoided.

They were both regretting that now.

"Hermes had some difficulty delivering Percy Jackson's invitation to the anniversary celebration," she told her daughter as Annabeth reached her. She could feel the attention of the other Olympians on the conversation; the minor gods were not impudent enough to spy on her. "We were hoping you could shed some light on his whereabouts."

"Percy?" Annabeth asked in surprise. "He's probably still in Hainan, unless he's gone to Tokyo already. I'm not sure when he was planning on heading back."

"Heading _back_?" He'd made multiple visits, then- worse and worse. The other location was even less expected; Hainan was an island in the South China Sea, and the southernmost province of the Republic of China. "Why was he in China, and what business does he have in Japan?"

"He's been sailing on the Chinese coast for a while, and he's in Japan because some of the friends he made there last year asked him back for his birthday," Annabeth answered, still puzzled. She didn't miss the surprise that briefly flitted across Athena's face. "You… didn't know?"

"Our restriction to Olympus was very thorough," Athena informed her. "We knew when our unclaimed children came to camp, but could look no further."

"He was planning the trip before you closed the gates. He found the _Firefly_ the day after the war ended," she said flatly.

"Things were chaotic, after the war." Athena closed her eyes, remembering their deep exhaustion after the fight with Typhon, their dead children, the damage and thousands of lives lost to Typhon and Oceanus, and the signs that Gaia was stirring and waking her youngest children at the time when they could least afford a new war. "Poseidon likely had too many other demands on his attention. Why was Percy looking for fireflies?"

"He found a sunken wreck and brought it to Camp Half-blood, and spent the next couple of years fixing it up. He named it the _Firefly_ when it was done." Annabeth shook her head, frowning. "That makes no sense. Percy said the ship was too badly damaged to be fixed when he found it. Poseidon repaired the keel for him."

"I suspect that will be news to Poseidon," Athena answered dryly. Percy Jackson had an unusual affinity for ships, and it would not be the first time he had displayed unexpected powers. "Why did he wish to sail to Japan?"

"Because it was there, I guess. I've never asked why, exactly, but as soon as he left Burma he skipped Thailand and Malaysia entirely and headed straight for Okinawa."

Athena realized she was missing something significant. "Annabeth, how long has Percy been gone?"

"Three years. We had his going-away party on his eighteenth birthday, and he left the next morning." Annabeth was studying her closely. "Why is that a problem?"

She smoothed her expression. "Poseidon said his son was in New York on his last birthday."

"He keeps his hellhound with him most of the time. It wears her out, and she can't really go anywhere else for a couple of weeks, but she's able to shadow-walk Percy and Blackjack home once in a while," her daughter explained. "This is the first birthday he wasn't planning on spending in New York. He came back in March for his little sister's third birthday, and I don't think he thought he needed to come home again so soon. I'm sure he'll come to the party once he hears about it, though."

She pulled out her phone and selected a number, but was quickly informed that the phone was out of coverage area. "I'll try Facebook."

"He uses a cellular phone?" Athena asked as Annabeth pulled out her brother Daedalus' laptop, which was still far ahead of the current models even after seven years. "Local monsters will hear a demigod using one no matter what part of the world he is in."

"He stopped caring years ago," Annabeth answered with cold satisfaction. "We've all got phones now. Things have changed."

Athena paused, and looked in on her claimed children. The younger ones remained at Camp Half-Blood. The ones older than eighteen, though, were in the boroughs of New York. All of them. And the monster density was far, far lower than it had been a few months after the war.

"You've created a safe-haven," she murmured.

"We've maintained it," she corrected. "Percy started using his phone regularly, and the monsters in New York that didn't learn to ignore the signal died fast. We never let the population recover. Groups of us get together a couple of times a week in different parts of New York and set ambushes. People get the chance to make longer calls while everyone else takes care of anything that shows up. Short calls are usually fine now as long as we don't attract anything at home, and wireless internet is almost risk-free. Hardly anyone gets attacked randomly anymore."

"Efficient. Well done."

Annabeth smiled at the praise and logged onto Facebook. She navigated to Percy Jackson's page and scanned through his most recent activity. "No, nothing new; he's only added pictures since he told us that he was heading to Tokyo for his birthday. Typical. He'd rather call home and fight an army of monsters than write a two-sentence update."

Athena looked over her shoulder as Annabeth clicked through a set of rainforest pictures tagged 'Jianfengling Nature Reserve'. "He probably took these for Grover. He's gotten good with the camera on his phone; he got some pretty impressive ones of the Parthenon a couple of years ago."

"Do you know anything about the friends he is visiting?" Athena asked. Nothing of the import of the query showed in her voice, but Annabeth was her daughter and knew her well. Athena did not make small talk, or ask idle questions.

"No. He's never said anything about staying in touch with anyone from Japan." Her tone was deliberately casual. "That's weird, actually. It's the sort of thing he'd mention. Percy doesn't really talk about himself much, you know? But he likes to tell stories about places he's been to and the friends he's made along the way. When he met Tiberinus and Rhea Silvia he told me all about them next Christmas. And ever since he sailed out of the Mediterranean, he's only talked about humans. He says he's fought monsters, but never describes them. And he's never mentioned meeting a single god."

She paused for a beat, then added, "That started about the time that Iris Messages stopped getting through to him."

Athena met Annabeth's grey eyes, so similar to her own, and did not deny the insinuation. Annabeth took the silence for the answer it was meant to be and dropped the line of inquiry. She turned back to the laptop and typed a few sentences on the message board to let him know, in couched terms, of the five-year anniversary party on Olympus.

Even if Annabeth was correct and he was willing to slight the Shinto gods to attend the Olympian celebration, Athena doubted Percy would have access to an internet connection in time to read the post. Takama-ga-hara, the home of the celestial gods of the Shinto pantheon, would deliberately contain nothing invented by Hermes.

Annabeth clicked the laptop shut decisively. "Percy usually lets demigods contact him, since he doesn't want to get anyone attacked, but he talks to his family and Rachel Dare pretty often. You could ask them if he's called home recently."

"We likely will." Athena turned away, and then paused and turned back. "Why did you and Percy Jackson never become romantically involved?"

She stiffened. "You didn't care back then. Why does it matter now?"

"I had believed that he desired more than you wished to give. In this day and age, sixteen is considered young to make a dedicated romantic commitment." If Athena had interpreted the timing of events correctly, though, the true answer would divert the resentment of Poseidon and possibly of Aphrodite, who was rather fond of the palace Annabeth had built for her.

"That wasn't the problem." She made an unconscious gesture of warding, and shook her head sharply. "Something changed after the war. _Percy_ changed. The only reason he stayed in New York to graduate high school was because his ship wasn't fixed yet. He's got a… wanderlust, I guess is the best word. Grover said it made him feel like he had ants crawling under his skin."

She put aside an old memory and met Athena's eyes, calm once more. "Before he left, Rachel gave him a prophecy that said he's never going to stop travelling, and he was thrilled about it. That's not what I want out of life. He asked me to come with him. I asked him to stay with me. And we decided not to hurt each other."

Athena smiled slightly and disappeared.

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Apollo materialized behind the Delphic Oracle while she sketched the satyrs that were tending the strawberry field in the mid-afternoon sunlight.

"Rachel Dare."

She jumped and jerked her hand across the paper, ruining the drawing. "Damnit!"

"Well, if you really want me to, sure," Apollo agreed cheerfully.

"Um, no, that's okay," she said as she closed the sketchbook. "Welcome back, Lord Apollo. What can I do for you?"

His sunny smile didn't waver, and he'd finally calmed down enough to keep his eyes a human blue. "We're looking for Percy Jackson. Annabeth Chase said you might have talked to him more recently than she had."

"Probably, yeah," she agreed. "He called yesterday to let me know that he wouldn't be able to take any calls on his birthday. He'd just flown into Japan and has managed to find probably the only place in the country with no cell phone coverage to stay at."

"Flown?" He felt Zeus's focus on the conversation intensify.

"He took his pegasus with him," the redhead answered smoothly.

Apollo raised an eyebrow. "God of truth, sweetheart. A lie by omission is still a lie."

"…He picked up a flying carpet somewhere back in the Middle East. He still prefers riding, though." She shrugged. "When the cat's away…"

A memory whispered across her mind- a memory she associated with that phrase. Apollo finished the saying as he'd seen it. "The mice go skydiving. Not smart, dear."

Thunder rumbled across the sky as Zeus figured out what that meant. Rachel winced.

"So, um, you can find Percy in Japan. And," she said to the sky, "he _probably_ rode a pegasus to get there."

"Do you know anything about his lover there?" Apollo asked bluntly. Athena might dance around the issue, but he wasn't about to bother. Percy Jackson didn't deserve discretion.

"His _what?_ " She gaped at him, and then snapped her mouth shut and shook her head. "He hasn't said a thing! Are you sure?"

His expression darkened, and she raised her hands defensively. "Sorry. Of course you're sure. As far as I know, he hasn't dated anyone since we broke up."

"Since you _what?_ " He started glowing, just faintly, and she took a step back.

"Whoa! No sex was involved, we're just friends!"

Truth.

Apollo stopped short and turned away, taking a deep breath.

Right. He knew that. Even on Olympus, he'd have known if his Oracle didn't meet the qualifications for the position anymore. He was second-guessing everything today.

"Apollo." His twin appeared next to him in a flash of cool moonlight. "Finish swiftly and return to Olympus; we are needed in council."

He turned his attention back to the mountain he'd just come from, and felt the new problem. A foreign deity at the gates. Probably Shinto just because of the timing, although he couldn't tell who it was from out here.

"I'm done. She knows nothing."

"A moment, then." Artemis turned to Rachel. "Did your oaths become tiresome so quickly, Oracle?"

She straightened defiantly. "I am not of your Hunt, and have not sworn to turn my back on all association with men, Lady Artemis. Percy knows the requirements of my position and in high school there were social situations that were made easier by a visible boyfriend. We went to each other's proms together, nothing more."

"Many of my fallen Hunters once heard similar lines." She gave Apollo a look of exasperation, and he shrugged, unrepentant.

"Yeah, but Percy's not like that. You know that. It's _Percy_."

"Men change," Artemis sniffed.

"Percy won't ever change that much." Rachel shook her head, bewildered. "What happened? Why do you even care who he's dating?"

Apollo checked his watch. "Ah, look at the time!"

"Better that you not know, maiden." Artemis hesitated, and then asked, "He made no advances?"

"He was a perfect gentleman," she answered exasperatedly.

They departed in flashes of silver and gold, with a pensive expression on Artemis's face.

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"-clear sign of a guilty conscience!" Zeus snapped as the twins appeared back in the council room.

"We have always instructed our children to keep encounters with other pantheons to themselves," Poseidon answered. "He is only keeping to that tradition."

Apollo glanced around as he sat back on his throne. Hermes was absent, but Hestia was seated in her throne and the amphitheater had been cleared to receive the visitor. The physical absence of the minor deities meant nothing at all; each god's power was connected to their throne, and if they bothered to focus on it they would know what happened in its vicinity.

Apollo could feel all of Olympus focusing on the throne room at the moment.

He was about to ask about Hermes' empty throne when the god himself returned, accompanied by Hades.

"I hear we're getting visitors," the dark god said dryly as he moved to the iron throne next to Poseidon's. "Can't have an empty spot, hmm?"

"Your input will be invaluable, brother. Your children got along so well with theirs, after all," Hera remarked acidly.

"And Poseidon's child has gotten much closer to them than Adolf ever did," Hades riposted, clearly amused by the entire situation. "Who are we expecting?"

The question was directed at Apollo, who knew more of the Shinto _kami_ than any other Olympian. He focused on the goddess proceeding up the path to the summit, and frowned.

"Five syllables. 'I've never met her.'"

Hades lost his smirk. That wasn't just an inconvenience; it was a critical intelligence failure. They should have noticed this goddess a long time ago.

Most gods found it uncomfortable to leave their own domain. It was possible, but they were stripped of the vast majority of their power, and if the part that had been sent out was killed they had to spend a painful few days pulling themselves together at the heart of their territory. The lesser gods, the _genus loci_ of the rivers and cities, did not leave their homes unless Olympus moved, and often not even then.

The greater gods had larger domains but the same limitations, with a few exceptions that had nothing to do with power. Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades were the greatest gods of the West, but outside of it they were almost human. Of the Olympians, the gods that had the farthest reach were the gods of philosophy and trade, of invention and movies, of music and war- the gods of the aspects of Western Civilization more portable than their heavens, seas, or afterlife. When Apollo had visited Allied-occupied Japan to witness Emperor Hirohito's Humanity Declaration, the West had been at the height of its supremacy in Japan, and he had retained the majority of his power.

Cultural exchange went both ways, though. In the glory days of the Roman Empire, the Celtic horse-goddess Epona had shrines in Rome and the cult of the Persian war god Mithras had spread through the legions. Today, the influence of foreign gods was usually subtler, but still very much present, and they made a point to be aware of the ones in the West.

The Shinto goddess now approaching the Hall of the Gods was probably only moderately powerful in Japan, but she had kept most of her power while walking into their home. And they had no idea who she was.

"Five years. So short a time, even for mortals," Demeter murmured. "What happened, to let a new goddess reach so far?"

"She's old," Hades disagreed. "She was close to death, and fairly recently."

"She's come to introduce herself," Dionysus pointed out practically as he finished his Diet Coke and let the goblet disappear. "We'll figure all this out soon enough."

The goddess paused at the entrance to the throne room, probably waiting to be announced. They were considerably less formal than the Shinto court, though, so Zeus just called out,

"Enter."

Her sniff of disdain was audible from across the cavernous room, but she came in anyway. She was human-proportioned until she altered her size between one step and the next to match the fifteen-foot Olympians. The Shinto goddess was a beautiful Japanese woman who looked to be in her mid-twenties, with a pale face, black hair, and deep brown eyes. She was dressed in a brown silk visiting-kimono with fields of rice, herds of game animals, and a shoal of fish embroidered along the sleeves and hem, and was carrying a round, brightly-polished silver mirror cradled in both hands.

She stopped just behind the hearth, far enough out from the semicircle of thrones to be able to see all of the Olympians without turning, and gave Zeus a bow slightly shallower than she should have offered to a ruler.

"Lord Zeus, King of Olympus, greetings." Her voice was calm and cold. "My mistress, Amaterasu-omikami, would hear your explanation for the intrusion of your court on her privacy this night."

Ah. Right. They'd had concerns other than the potential diplomatic incident, but they _had_ kind of spied on the ruler of another pantheon while she was asleep and naked.

"And who has she sent to _request_ answers, goddess? We do not know you," Zeus rumbled back.

"I am Uke Mochi, goddess of food."

That almost made sense. Instant ramen was in every grocery store and convenience mart in the United States, and there were hundreds of sushi restaurants in New York alone. It _almost_ made sense, but-

"You're dead," Apollo blurted.

Thousands of years ago, she had gotten a visit from Amaterasu's brother and husband, the moon god Tsukuyomi. Uke Mochi had vomited up a feast for him to eat while he was watching, and he had destroyed her for the insult. The Shinto underworld, Yomi, was their equivalent of both Hades and Tartarus; fallen gods sent to Yomi did not return.

"I have recovered." Rather than elaborate, Uke Mochi knelt and lifted the mirror in her hands to her chest. "You mistake me, Lord Zeus. I have been sent to demand nothing of you. My lady will hear your answers personally."

She sent her power into the mirror, and it expanded to cover half of the hall. They could see their reflections briefly before the image twisted and distorted until it showed Amaterasu in the throne room of the Palace of the Sun in Takama-ga-hara **.** The throne she was sitting in was a pretty chair, and nothing more; the Shinto gods did not place their power in thrones the way that the Greek gods did.

Apollo let out a startled curse as the image in the mirror resolved more fully, because the Japanese sun goddess was flanked on either side by a god seated in a less-elaborate throne. The god at her left hand was her brother Susano'o, the Shinto storm god. That was unusual enough, because his relationship with his sister and queen was notoriously tempestuous. It was nothing, though, compared to the presence of the god in decorative silver armor at her right, because Tsukuyomi had not been in Amaterasu's company since Uke Mochi's destruction.

When Amaterasu heard about the loss of her friend, she had been so furious that she banished Tsukuyomi from her presence entirely. She and her husband hadn't so much as been in the same room in all of the centuries since, and they always travelled in different parts of the sky. The Shinto pantheon had settled into an elaborate dance to keep the two apart without slighting either of them; all entertainments were held in duplicate, one in the day and one in the night, and the few occasions that required both of them to be present had an entire cohort of gods doing their best to tactfully ensure that they were never close to each other.

Uke Mochi had been resurrected, and so Tsukuyomi sat at his wife's side for the first time in millennia. In the five years Olympus had been silent, everything they knew about the internal politics of the _kami_ of Japan had been turned inside out.

"Gods of Olympus." Amaterasu was now dressed, and in the full court regalia, with multiple layers of paper-thin silk that were only visible at the elaborately arranged collar. Her outermost robe was a solid dark gold that matched the color of her eyes perfectly. "Tonight, I sensed the intrusion of your combined powers in my palace and woke, only to find that your entire court had chosen to spy on my rest. What explanation do you offer for this insult?"

She was angry, but less so than she'd probably like them to believe. Apollo had seen her much more furious, seventy years ago when she'd had no choice but to welcome a foreign sun god to Japan. Sending Apollo, rather than wise Athena or silver-tongued Hermes, had been a deliberate insult on their part, meant to imply that Apollo would be shining above the island soon.

"You have in your palace a son of Olympus," Zeus answered darkly. "His father could not find him in the West, and we aided his search. Finding him in your realm was as much a surprise to us as it was to you."

"A thin excuse. Do you expect me to believe he is searching only now, when Jackson Percy left Poseidon's waters years ago?" Judging by Amaterasu's lingering glance at Poseidon, she was also cataloging the similarities to his son, but was coming at it from the opposite direction than the Greek gods usually did.

"I _expect_ you to-" Zeus started to retort, but he was cut off by Susano'o's bark of laughter.

"They've been too quiet since their civil war," the storm god said to his sister. Susano'o had gotten rid of his beard since Apollo had last seen him, and had switched to brown hair rather than the deep black of either of his siblings. He was also the only one of the three wearing a suit, probably more to irritate Amaterasu than for any other reason. "They've been licking their wounds. They really did just figure out he was gone."

"Enough of this," Poseidon snapped, clearly stung. "We all know you hate our children, Amaterasu. What is my son doing in your home _?"_

"Your concern, however belated, does you credit, Poseidon." Her tone said exactly the opposite. "Do not be troubled. Your son is a welcome guest in my palace-"

"So we saw," Aphrodite said cattily.

"-and is free to come and go as he pleases. No coercion holds him, and none here would harm him. You have my word of honor." To a Shinto god, it was an oath as binding as the Styx.

"You can say that, with your husband at your side?" Hera asked coldly. Apollo figured the situation hit a bit too close to home. "Does your queen's oath bind you, Tsukuyomi, so much that you ignore the man in her bed?"

Susano'o was overcome by a sudden coughing fit. Tsukuyomi waited for his brother to catch his breath, and then answered calmly,

"I have no quarrel with Percy, and you are mistaken. The rest of the palace uses futons. If there was a bed involved, it was his."

"Okay, stop. Just stop." Apollo decided they'd danced around the question for long enough. Seventy years ago, Amaterasu had handed the task of escorting him around the island to Tsukuyomi. Giving the job to a god she never intended to see again had been meant to insult them in return; because the god in question was her husband, they couldn't even claim she'd been rude. Apollo knew the moon god had been just as humiliated by the outcome of the war as his wife had been.

Tsukuyomi and Amaterasu hadn't been husband and wife in anything but name in thousands of years, and they'd both taken other companions in that time. That hadn't necessarily changed, even if they were getting along well enough to present a united front against Olympus, but they had always been discreet enough about it that it hadn't entered into the mythos. Now, Amaterasu was openly flaunting a Greek demigod as a lover, and Tsukuyomi, who had killed gods for lesser insults, didn't care.

Apollo didn't have a way to condense all that into a few words, and finally just made an encompassing gesture. "What happened?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Athena sighed. "Percy rescued Uke Mochi."

The brief moment of shocked silence was broken by an eardrum-splitting crack of thunder. Poseidon groaned and rubbed his forehead when Amaterasu inclined her head slightly in agreement.

"He completed a task long thought impossible. We owe Jackson Percy a great debt."

"I was still mortal when I went to get my mother, I think, and that Harry Cleese guy did the same thing," Dionysus mused. "It's not like it's hard."

"Yomi does not have the revolving-door policy of your underworld," Tsukuyomi replied in the same blandly mocking tone as before.

Hades snarled. "Listen, Shinto-"

"Peace, husband," Amaterasu said, glancing reprovingly back at the silver-eyed moon god before returning her attention to the Olympians. "I will accept that your intrusion on this night was an honest mistake. Another attempt to spy on Takama-ga-hara will be considered an act of aggression, and we will respond accordingly."

"How… unexpectedly understanding of you," Hermes said with narrowed eyes. Apollo agreed; the Shinto queen was never so tolerant. They were still missing something.

"And what of my son?" Poseidon asked tensely.

"That will be between you and Ryujin," she answered. "I trust you will keep Percy's best interests in mind when the two of you meet."

They all took a second to connect Poseidon's upcoming meeting to the fact that his favorite son was squarely in the heart of Ryujin's ancient waters, and then Poseidon was on his feet with his trident in hand. "Hold Percy hostage and the tsunami I send your way will make you remember the last one fondly!"

"Do you question my word, Olympian?" Her voice rose, and her eyes flared bright gold briefly. "Percy does not need your protection!"

"Amaterasu," Tsukuyomi said quietly. "The phrasing was open to mistranslation."

Well, that answered that. They were ruling together again, if he was able to give her advice in public. This, of course, begged the question of where in Tartarus Percy fit into the equation.

She took a deep breath, and visibly let her anger go, until she had on the same stoic mask she had been trying to hold the entire conversation. "Percy is not a captive. Ryujin holds him in high regard as well. He intends for you to release Percy from his filial obligation to you and your pantheon-"

"Did you just ask me to _disown my son?_ "

"-so that Ryujin may adopt him, and make him god of the territories in dispute."

The words hit Poseidon like a blow. "What?"

"The waters of the North Pacific," Amaterasu elaborated, slightly impatiently. "Ryujin will give the North Pacific waters to Jackson Percy, and include a stretch of his territory to the south that also touches your waters to fix the current borders between your oceans permanently in place. Percy's rank will be equivalent to the Dragon Kings directly under Ryujin."

"No," Poseidon whispered as he sank back into his throne, shaking his head slightly in bewilderment. It was almost painful to watch. "Why would he- why would you ask him to do this?"

Apollo realized distantly, through the shock and the simmering rage that hadn't ever really gone away since he'd summoned the picture that started this whole fiasco, that Poseidon's counterpart was good at political compromise. Even though the territory would stay under Ryujin's influence, the terms were favorable for the West.

The borders would be under the rule of a god that had strong ties to both oceans; Poseidon would not attempt to take Percy's realm, and he'd know that Percy wouldn't advance any further into Western waters if the opportunity came up again. Giving Poseidon's lost territory to one of his sons would allow Poseidon to save face, and the oceans would avoid a costly war. Percy's proposed realm was larger than any of the seas ruled over by the Dragon Kings, and if he became Ryujin's son as well, then the treaty would make him Triton's equivalent in the Far East in all but name. The position of heir was usually ceremonial anyway; neither Poseidon nor Ryujin would be fading anytime soon.

It probably would have worked, if they hadn't been asking for Percy Jackson.

"This proposal was not my suggestion," Amaterasu answered, misunderstanding the question completely. "Before he came to my court, Percy rescued Ryujin's eldest daughter from the Yamata-no-Orochi. A debt is owed, and this is the reward Ryujin would give him."

Apollo glanced at Susano'o, who had killed the giant eight-headed dragon the first time it had formed. Amaterasu was focused on Poseidon, but her brothers were studying the other gods. They hadn't missed Zeus's rigid posture, or the hissing of Hermes' snakes, or that Hera's throne was sprouting peacock feathers.

Amaterasu continued, "Ryujin desired the support of the pantheons he has been associated with since time immemorial. Bringing a Greek into his oceans could not be done lightly; he would not jeopardize his alliances when simple patience would serve to keep them.

"My price to welcome Percy to Japan, you already know. When Percy sailed to China last year, the Celestial Bureaucracy assigned Guan Gong to observe him. Two months ago, they fought the demon Chi You side-by-side and defeated him, and the Jade Emperor agreed that Percy would be welcomed by his court."

At the mention of Guan Gong, his counterpart in the Taoist pantheon, Ares drove the dagger he had been absently toying with through the leather armrest of his throne. Apollo was viciously glad; Ares hadn't cared about the defection until that instant.

"Your son will be gladly received in my pantheon and by the Taoist deities," Amaterasu concluded. "You need have no concern for his safety in Ryujin's waters, Poseidon."

"I… don't think that's the problem," Susano'o murmured.

"How dare he?" Hera hissed. " _How dare he?_ "

Amaterasu looked around, and finally realized that the only reason they hadn't been interrupting was because they were mostly too furious to speak.

"Why do you object? Their treaty will affect few in the West outside of the seas, and peace in the oceans can only benefit them."

"We are only startled by Ryujin's proposal, Amaterasu," Athena replied calmly. "Percy is loyal to his father and family."

"His mortal family, surely," she answered, making a dismissive gesture. "But he sailed from the heart of your power years ago, and has made himself welcome in every realm he has passed through. He has earned divinity many times over, and your civil war ended five years ago. You have been absent from his life for longer than you were in it. Would you ask him to be loyal to the gods of his childhood, even unto death?"

" _Gods of his childhood_?" Hermes snarled.

Poseidon said nothing, but only sat rigidly on his throne as he aged before their eyes.

The part of Apollo that was always guiding the Sun Chariot glanced down to the sea. It was flat and mirror-like.

Shock.

They'd be lucky if California was still attached to the United States when he snapped out of it. How could Percy do this to his father?

"We know that Ryujin has not yet given this treaty to Poseidon, and I have never heard that the dragon god would make a promise he is unable to keep. Have you discussed this proposal with Percy?"

Apollo couldn't believe Athena was still trying when even Poseidon was giving up. Pride, pride and a complete unwillingness to believe she could be _wrong_ -

"There would be little point in raising his hopes too soon. The timing of the Jade Emperor's agreement is convenient; Ryujin hopes to have the details finalized in time for Percy's birthday."

\- and the most annoying part was that she almost never was.

"So," Athena clarified, "Percy has not agreed to become a god?"

Amaterasu raised her eyebrows. "You cannot imagine he would refuse."

When that sank in, Apollo started laughing, which set off Hermes and Ares. Poseidon relaxed, and his white hair started darkening to black.

"Good communication is _so_ important in a lasting relationship," Aphrodite remarked, pretending to try to hide her smile behind an upraised hand.

Zeus stood decisively, and summoned a thunderbolt to his right hand.

"Ask Perseus, then, of his… _childhood_. Ask him of his sixteenth birthday, and the destruction of Kronos his grandfather. Ask him of the reward he was offered, and of what he requested instead. And when he has given you your answer, remember this. We do _not_ release him. Perseus Jackson is and will forever remain a son of the West. And if he should accept from your hands what he refused from ours, know that we will go to war for the insult."

He threw the lightning bolt, and the expanded mirror shattered into a thousand pictures of Amaterasu's startled face, leaving Uke Mochi visible and still holding the original mirror. She made a rude gesture at Zeus and assumed her true form, departing in a huff.

"You really should take over the theater from Dionysus, you know," Hades remarked.

"Poseidon," Zeus snapped, ignoring his eldest brother, "bring your son _home_."

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**In this chapter, Percy got hand-wavy language powers from a magic fish**. Please assume that any conversation he has in the rest of the story is in the native language of the speaker unless told otherwise.

Like this one, all future story chapters will be split between Percy's trip and the present day. Percy will head for the Mediterranean next chapter and will visit countries bordering or in flying distance from the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, and the Red Sea until roughly his nineteenth birthday. He'll spend the next seven or so months in the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean, then head directly to Japan for plot reasons as soon as he comes into Ryujin's territory. He'll spend the rest of the time until present day in Japan, China, and Taiwan.

Percy's trip is the part of the story I've only got a vague outline for. If you want to see Percy visiting somewhere, interacting with a particular myth, or acquiring a specific piece of magical bling, I'm open to suggestions! (And, regarding the trip: although I try to do the research, I've never visited these places. If you have, please let me know if you see inaccuracies.)

**Mythology notes:**

**Banshee** \- Banshees in Irish folklore were fairy women that would wail when there was going to be a death in the house. They were a very bad omen, but weren't actually responsible for the death; only in more recent pop culture have banshees gotten a sonic attack. Fairies were always creatures to be wary of, though, and monsters don't like demigods, so although I left out the sonic scream this one is more aggressive than is traditional.

**Aughisky** (agh-iski) _ **-**_ An Anglicization of the Irish _each uisce;_ also called the _each uisge_ in Scottish Gaelic. It is among the most vicious of the various shape-shifting Celtic water horses; unlike the kelpie, which lives in running water and may only drown anyone gullible enough to ride the pretty horsy standing by the river, the sea-and-lake-dwelling _each uisce_ will also devour the entire body except for the liver. If saddled and bridled, it is an excellent mount as long as it's ridden inland, but if it sees the ocean the horse becomes uncontrollable, dives in, and eats its rider.

**Tuatha de Danann-** The 'Children of Danu', the gods of ancient Ireland, who were supposedly driven into _sidhes_ (fairy mounds) or to Avalon-esq islands by the coming of new settlers to Ireland. Eventually folklore and Christianity turned them into the Fair Folk. I'm using the Tuatha de Danann with names from the myths as gods; the various breeds of fairies from Irish folklore are the in-story equivalent of the various types of Greek monsters.

' **Suicidal newt** _ **'**_ **-** An _alp-luachra_ , which has mystical effects equivalent to a tapeworm's. Swallow it, and you starve no matter how much you eat. It can be gotten rid of by eating salted meat next to a stream, until it gets thirsty and leaves through the mouth to get a drink.

**Clurichaun** \- From the Irish _clobhair-ceann_. Little drunk fairies. If one moved into a wine cellar, he would avail himself of the contents; if the owner was lucky, the clurichaun also guard the cellar and prevent any of their servants from doing the same thing without permission. They're hard to get rid of- if you pack up and move to get away, he'll probably move with you. Sources differ on whether the clurichaun is simply an off-duty leprechaun, a regional variation of the same fairy, or a different race entirely.

**The Wild Hunt-** The Irish version of the Wild Hunt is the _sluagh_ , which was either made up of malevolent fairies or the souls of the damned, depending on whether the tale was written before or after Christianity took over. When making the choice between having Percy fight fairies or go boar-hunting with them, I thought the latter would be more interesting, so he didn't meet the _sluagh_ described by Irish folklore. There are variants of the Wild Hunt from all over Europe, and I tried for more of a 'true neutral' vibe than 'always chaotic evil.'

The leader of the Hunt is Odin, or Gwyn ap Nudd, or King Arthur, or the horned god Cernunnos, or the Headless Horseman, or any of a dozen others (and not always male); the host could be made up of the souls of the damned, dead heroes, fairies, pagan gods… the lists go on. The Hunt is generally accompanied by hellhounds; the white hounds with red ears are the Cwn Annwn, from the Welsh version of the myth. Since the boar was also from a Welsh myth, I thought it was appropriate, and modeled the leader of this particular Hunt vaguely on Anwyn, the ruler of the otherworld in the older Welsh mythology.

**Twrch Trwyth-** (Irish: Torc Triath) The pig is from the Welsh tale _Culhwch and Olwen_ , an Arthurian legend set to parchment c. 1100 AD, before the French poets got ahold of him. In short, Culhwch wants to marry Olwen, but her father, the giant Ysbaddaden, has a prophecy saying he'll die on his daughters' wedding day. Culhwch is backed up by his cousin Arthur's war band, though, including Manawyan fab Llyr, so Ysbaddaden gives the suitor and company thirteen wedding gifts that they need to collect before the wedding can happen.

Half of the material that has come to us through the ages is about Arthur's warband doing side-quests to collect the various people, animals, and objects that he'll need to hunt the Twrch Trwyth so Ysbaddaden can style his hair for the wedding. The boar himself was not hard to find, since he had already laid waste to a third of Ireland. They chase the boar and his seven piglets across Ireland until he gets annoyed at the random Welshmen attacking him and crosses the Irish Sea to destroy their homes instead. Then they chase the pigs across Wales until they manage to kill the piglets and get all of the grooming utensils off of the boar's head. He is eventually driven off a cliff in Cornwall and swims out to sea followed by two magic dogs.

**The Salmon of Knowledge and Fionn mac Cumhaill** \- The only (surviving) legend the Salmon appears in is The Childhood of Fionn mac Cumhaill. Fionn's teacher, the bard Finnegas, had fished on the banks of the River Boyne for seven years looking for the Salmon. He finally landed it, and told Fionn to cook the fish, but not to eat any of it. Fionn did so, but a blister rose on the fish when it was cooking. He pushed down on the blister with his thumb, and it popped open and burned Fionn with the fish-juice. He stuck his thumb in his mouth to cool the burn, and became the first to taste the Salmon of Knowledge. When Finnegas started eating the salmon and didn't feel any different, he asked his student what had happened, and Fionn told him about the blister. Finnegas was a good sport about it, and gave the rest of the fish to Fionn. From then on, when Fionn needed to know something, he stuck his thumb in his mouth and the knowledge came to him. He went on to gain his father's former position as the leader of the Fianna, the warband of the High King, and was one of Ireland's greatest heroes.

**Manannan mac Lir** \- 'Lir' is a grammatical variation of Lear, or 'sea'; Manannan has the sea-god post in every Irish legend he appears in, and the 'son of the sea' thing may be metaphorical. (There is a legend of the Children of Lir, but that Lir wasn't a sea god, and may just have had the same name.) The Welsh cognate is Manawydan fab Llyr, who was included in the original hunt of the Twrch Trwyth. The color-changing coat, crane bag, horse that can run over the waves, association with the Isle of Man, and job guarding the path to the Blessed Isles are all from his legends. The apples of Emain Ablach (the Isle of Apples) would never be reduced, no matter how much they were eaten, and whoever ate them wouldn't need any other food. The silver branch, sometimes with and sometimes without golden apples attached, is a common theme in several legends of sailors who headed out there.

One of those legends is of King Cormac of Teamhair, who met a nameless man on the road carrying a silver branch with nine apples of red gold. The king asked him for the branch, which had the ability to make anyone forget the cares of the world when the leaves rustled, and the man agreed to give it to him in return for three gifts to be named later. Cormac, having the bargaining skills of a five-year-old, agreed. (It was _really_ nice branch.) The 'three gifts' were his wife, son, and daughter. Cormac was happy with the drug-branch for a while, but even though he was incapable of being sad, he eventually realized that this might have been a bad thing to do, and goes after his family. Manannan made it easy on him and transported him to his home island with a magic mist. Or Mist, if you prefer. When he made it to Manannan's house and figured out who the guy who'd taken his family was, he was reunited with his wife and kids, and they were sent back to Teamhair, presumably with a lesson about contract negotiation thoroughly learned. As a parting gift, Manannan gave Cormac the branch and a nice cup that broke into three pieces whenever the person holding it said a lie and repaired itself whenever they spoke the truth.

The drug-branch kind of creeped me out, so Percy's doesn't have that power. Planting it in his ship let it grow very nutritious apples instead.

**Excalibur Almaz** exists, and was founded by Arthur 'Art' Dula. They do eventually want to send a privately trained team to the moon, but that trip has a price tag of $150 million USD per ticket.

**Takama-ga-hara:** 'High Plains of Heaven', the home of the celestial gods. It is traditionally connected to earth by the 'floating bridge of heaven', which is guarded by the god Sarutahiko.

**Uke Mochi and Tsukuyomi-no-Mikoto:** This is the Just-So-Story about why the sun and the moon are in different parts of the sky, creating day and night. The version of the story where Uke Mochi vomits up the feast is actually the _least_ scatological; in some of them, she also shits and pisses part of it. While killing her was extreme to modern sensibilities, it's hard to blame the guy for being sickened. After her death, Uke Mochi's body continued to produce seeds; her eyes, ears, and nose produced stuff like rice and beans, she sprouted a mulberry bush with silkworms, and wheat and soybeans grew from her genitals and anus. Humans started farming to raise the food that came from her body after she died.

Uke Mochi's kimono is a _homongi_. My mental image for Tsukuyomi is coming from tablis . deviantart dot com / art / Tsukuyomi-The-Moon-God-84761827

**Yomi** : Fair warning: the underworld is a very poorly-defined part of Shinto mythology. If there are actual descriptions of it, comparable to the fairly detailed descriptions of Hades in Greek mythology, then I haven't seen an English translation of them. I'm not even sure who rules down there; I've seen stories where it's a never-seen god named Yomi, the goddess of death Izanami, or Susano'o. (It won't be Susano'o in this story, although he lives near the entrance.) When I show Percy going down there, I'll be making a lot of it up.

The only attempt to bring back the dead from Yomi occurred when the first woman, Izanami, died birthing the fire god Kagu-tsuchi. Her husband Izanagi went after her, but pulled an Orpheus and looked at her when she'd asked him not to, and saw that she had become a rotting corpse. Furious, she sent a group of hags to kill him, but he escaped and pushed a huge boulder across the entrance to Yomi. She shouted from behind the boulder that she would cause a thousand humans to die every day as revenge, and he yelled back that he'd cause 1,500 births to make up for it. And so, we die.

**Adult adoption** is culturally acceptable and relatively common in Japan, usually as a way to keep a business within the family while still making sure the heir is competent. The prospective son often marries a daughter of the family in addition to being legally adopted, leading to the saying 'Better to have daughters than sons, for then you can choose your sons', but men can simply be adopted if that is not possible. (Though Ryujin would still have preferred it if Percy had gotten together with one of his daughters.)

**Dragon King-** The rulers of the seas in Chinese mythology. In my aforementioned squishing of the ocean dragon mythologies together, the Dragon Kings of the North, South, East, and West Seas are the gods of those areas of the ocean under Ryujin's overall rule.

**Susano'o and the Yamata no Orochi** : When the gods tricked Amaterasu into coming out of her cave after Susano'o and Amaterasu fought, she stripped Susano'o of most of his power and banished him to the mortal realm. (One wonders why she didn't just do that in the first place.) He wandered around for a while having adventures until he ran into a couple of upset minor _kami_. He asked them what was wrong, and they explained that the Yamata no Orochi, a dragon with eight heads and eight tails the size of mountains, had demanded seven of their daughters as tribute over the last seven years and had just come back for their last daughter, Kushinada-hime.

Susano'o told them to relax, turned the girl into a comb and stuck it in his hair, cross-dressed, and took her place. He had the earth gods brew eight giant tubs of sake, and gave them to the Orochi, which drank all of them and fell into a drunken stupor. Susano'o killed it, cut it up, and found a magic sword inside of its body. He gave the Kusanagi sword to Amaterasu as an apology and she rescinded his banishment; the sword is now one of the three Imperial Regalia of Japan. Susano'o married Kushinada-hime, settled down, and became a severely overprotective father. A nice picture of him and the Orochi is at

shugonotenshi. blogspot dot com /2012/12/susanoo-sea-and-storms-god. html

**Jade Emperor:** Yu Huang Shangdi, the ruler of the Heavenly Bureaucracy, the massive organization of gods in the Chinese folk religion. Chinese gods were considered to have been organized similarly to the bureaucracy that was used to rule over Imperial China. In Taoism, he is still the ruler of the Heavenly Bureaucracy, but is subordinate to the Three Pure Ones, the manifestations of the Tao.

**Guan Yu** : Often called Guan Gong (Lord Guan), or Guan Di (Emperor Guan). Guan Yu was a general under Liu Bei, who founded the kingdom of Shu in the Three Kingdoms period of China after the fall of the Han Dynasty. He is one of the main characters of the highly romanticized and aptly named Chinese epic _Romance of the Three Kingdoms_ , wherein he performs various feats of valor until finally getting captured by the nominal villain, Cao Cao, who tried to get him to switch sides and join him. He refused, and was executed in 220 AD.

Guan Yu had really good publicity and was deified by the Sui dynasty, roughly three centuries later, and there are legends that neatly fold his worship into Taoism (i.e., his defeat of Chi You, below) and Chinese Buddhism. He's still widely respected as a general, is credited with blessing a number of victories for worthy causes, and is generally considered to approve of people who follow codes of loyalty and righteousness. As such, Guan Yu is paradoxically worshipped by both policemen and members of organized crime rings. I figured that he and Percy would get along.

He's also the god of tofu.

**Chi You:** A demon/god/king from early Chinese mythology who fought the legendary Yellow Emperor (Huang Di). He created a mist, forcing the Yellow Emperor to create a south-pointing chariot to find his way through it, and enlisted various water and rain gods to fight with him that were eventually defeated by the goddess of drought on Huangdi's side. Chi You lost the battle and was executed.

In roughly the 11th century AD, during the Song Dynasty, Chi You reportedly got annoyed by their worship of Huang Di and ruined some economically important salt ponds. Guan Yu took control of a celestial army and defeated him at the request of the Jade Emperor, and was brought into the Celestial Bureaucracy as a result of the successful campaign.


	3. A Genie Gives Me Directions

**Disclaimer** : None of my narrators are omnipotent. Or completely reliable.

This chapter took about a month longer to write than I’d hoped, and the next one won’t be out any sooner because I want to get a chapter out for my on-going Bleach story. Pretty soon it will be a year without an update on that one, which is just sad.

Also, did anyone else think that Riordan missed a good opportunity when he didn’t have Percy and Hercules meet, or was that just me?

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_November, two years after the Second Olympian War_

_Big cliff_ , Blackjack remarked, munching on his oats.

“One of the biggest.” I took a bite of my late breakfast. I was sort of proud of myself- the recipe was my mom’s, and the blue pancakes tasted a lot like hers. It was pretty much the only dish that didn’t come from a can that I’d mastered so far.

We were entering the Strait of Gibraltar. There was a range of mountains to the south, and the most impressive cliff I’d ever seen to the north. This was the entrance to the ancient world, the original home of the gods and the most dangerous place for demigods in Western Civilization.

 _Hey, is that island supposed to be there_?

“Island? There’s no…” I trailed off when I looked away from the sheer thousand-foot white outcrop on our port side and saw that an island had, in fact, materialized straight ahead of us. We were approaching a set of Grecian pillars about half as tall as the _Firefly’s_ main mast, with ‘ _Nothing Further Beyond_ ’ written in shimmering letters in the sand under water between them. It took me a minute to realize that the words were in Latin. “Weird.”

I turned us south to avoid the magic island, but the columns and island both moved with us. After a bit, I gave up and turned us straight east again. If I was lucky, this was the mythical equivalent of a border check. If not, I might wind up turned into a rodent again.

As I anchored between the pillars, a dark-haired guy in white robes and a fur overcoat appeared on the beach, clearly waiting for me.

_Want a ride, boss?_

“No thanks. Stay close, though. I’ll whistle if I need backup.” I dove into the water and sped towards the island. I surfaced in the shallows and got a closer look at the god.

I knew that fur coat. I’d worn its twin, before I sacrificed it to my dad to get Bessie to Olympus safely.

“You’re Hercules. What are you doing _here_?” I blurted out.

He smiled thinly as I came out of the water. He was a little taller than my six feet, with short black hair, blue eyes, and deeply tanned skin. He looked about twenty, but he’d probably been older when he died; gods could be any age they chose.

“And you are Poseidon’s only mortal son,” he stated, looking at my completely dry jeans and hoodie. “These are the Pillars of Hercules, Percy Jackson. Where else would I be?”

“I thought all of the gods had been recalled to Olympus. Mr. D left Camp Half-blood two years ago. “

The look on his face soured even more. Yeah, I could see the resemblance to his dad. Zeus had that same expression whenever I was around.

“After I died, Dad made me the doorkeeper of Olympus. He didn’t mention that meant guarding the doors of the ancient lands for the rest of forever.”

“You’ve been stuck here since you died?” I was beginning to get the feeling I’d dodged a bullet two years ago. “Why are you here, if Mr. D became an Olympian? You were, like, the Starbucks of Ancient Greece. You were everywhere, and the only legends you hear about Mr. D’s life are the dolphin thing or him driving people who didn’t worship him mad.”

“I did many great deeds in life, and this was my reward. To become a _minor_ god. The Olympian butler,” Hercules answered bitterly. “Dionysus is the only god who can somewhat understand, but we were not the same. Zeus did not make him a god. He already was one- he just happened to be born mortal. He invented wine and stayed human long enough to spread his cult from Greece to India, then went to Olympus to claim his place. Believe me, not even Hestia would have intentionally created a god who would take away one of the Olympian thrones.”

“Oh. Well, um, sorry the immortality hasn’t worked out for you.” I rubbed my neck, trying to think of a way to get the former demigod off this topic. “So, do I need to declare anything to get into the Mediterranean? Magic items, weapons, that sort of thing?”

“No. I just need to give you the standard warning about how dangerous it is past this island. Not just anyone can survive. I’ll also have to give you a quest to prove yourself, but I don’t make a big deal about it. I usually just make them sing a funny song or something.”

“That’s a problem. My singing has made babies cry.” My mom hadn’t let me try to put Erica to bed since.

His lips twitched involuntarily. “So, why are you here? What’s your quest, and who gave it to you?”

I shrugged. “There’s no quest. I graduated from high school last summer and want to see the world. The Mediterranean seemed like a good place to start.”

He stared at me. A little too late, I realized that I probably should have just made something up. “You’re going on a pleasure cruise?”

I wasn’t about to back down to the guy who’d seduced and abandoned Zoe, even if he was a god. I met his blue eyes challengingly. “Is that a problem?”

“I’ve heard a lot about you, Percy Jackson.” His suddenly not-entirely-sane gaze dropped to the pen in my pocket, which he had carried in a different form.

“The hydra, the Nemean Lion, the Augean Stables, the Stymphalian birds… the list went on, history repeated itself, and then you refused godhood and took something else instead.”

He drew his lips back in a snarl that wouldn’t have been out of place on the lion that his coat came from. “And instead of destroying you for your impudence, they gave you your wishes and let you live your life in peace. And now, you’re going sailing around the world for _fun_.”

“I’m a son of Poseidon,” I reminded him. “Sailing is kind of my thing.”

“You wouldn’t have sailed anywhere, if you’d joined your father like you were supposed to,” he snapped.

“Mortality’s sounding better and better.” I knew I shouldn’t provoke him, but this guy was ticking me off as much as Ares.

“Normally, I don’t make a big deal about my test. But for you… they say you’re the most powerful demigod since _me_. You can handle something a bit more challenging.” His eyes went dark, like the sky before a storm. “On the other side of the island is the River Achelous. Bring me the river god’s horn, and you may pass.”

I waited a second, but he didn’t elaborate. “That’s all the information you’re giving me? Are we talking a tuba or a conch shell here?”

His smile was ugly. “Figure it out.”

Plague-ridden son of a hellhound. “Fine.”

I turned around and headed back into the water. I’d rather swim around the island than hike. Before diving under, I hesitated and turned back to him, taking Riptide out of my pocket and uncapping it. “The girl who gave you this sword… what was her name?”

He raised an eyebrow. “After all these centuries, why would I remember?”

“Do you know what happened to her?”

“Do I look like I care?”

“No.” I replaced the cap. “No, I didn’t think you would.”

I turned and dove into the waist-deep water. I’d looked up to him when I was a kid. It was something I’d been glad to grow out of.

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I found the mouth of the river fairly easily, and walked upstream next to it until I came to a deep swimming hole. The whispers of the shallow rapids that tumbled down into it called at me to come in, relax, take a drink and cool off. That fit with what I’d come to do, so I didn’t hesitate before diving into the deep pool.

“Hey! Um, Achelous, right? Hercules sent me here.” I decided not to start out with insults the way I had with Hudson and East a couple of years ago. I probably had his attention already; it wasn’t like this was a hot vacation spot.

 _Hercules._ A resigned voice shimmered through the water. _Has he sent you to kill me, then?_

I frowned. “Um, no. Does he try that a lot? He just said that I had to get your horn to get into the Mediterranean.”

 _Even worse._ The river god shimmered into view. He was a blue bull with a man’s head at the top of his bovine neck. He had curly black hair and a beard styled into ringlets, and was wearing reading glasses.

Oh, and he had a single bull’s horn sprouting from his left side, causing him to tilt his head towards the left.

“I refuse to let him have my other horn.”

I stared at him. Yeah, that old hero-worship was dead and buried. “He wants me to fetch him someone’s body part?”

“My right horn was the original cornucopia, demigod. Good food and drink flow from it, just as my power causes this river to flow. No doubt Hercules would keep this one. To let him have it would be a tragedy and a waste.”

“Yeah, I agree. You’re a god, though- why can’t you just regrow your horn? Don’t you control what you look like?”

His blue face flushed to a dark purple. “The horns are my symbol of power, and when Hercules was a demigod he claimed one as a spoil of war. I cannot replace it. He cannot take another god’s symbol now, though. Why do you think he sent you to defeat me, instead of coming himself?”

I shrugged. “I think he just has a grudge, actually. I don’t think he expected me to come back.”

“Is that so?” He sighed, lowering his head mournfully. “He was right. You won’t.”

That was all the warning I got before several rocks from the bottom of the pool came sailing at me, but it was enough. The projectiles bounced off the water that solidified around me. “Hey, stop! I just came to- _woah!_ ”

My watershield dissolved and the rocks came soaring around again. Fortunately, he was aiming them all at my front. The only one that bothered me was the one that hit between my eyes, which had enough force to snap my head back but couldn’t actually do any damage.

“This is my river, son of Poseidon. You have no power here that I do not choose to allow you. It was foolish of you to confront a river god in his home.”

“I didn’t confront anyone! I just wanted-” A current of water slammed from him and pushed me back into the rock wall of the room-sized pool. I twisted so I hit with my shoulder first.

“Would you _listen to me_?!” I tried to swim for the surface, but found that the water was holding me in place. A few more rocks were sailing in the water around me, and if he tried for long enough he’d hit my mortal spot eventually.

“I am sorry about this _._ I cannot let history repeat itself through you. Letting Hercules have my other horn would be mortifying.”

Achelous wasn’t listening, and I couldn’t control the river around us. Last time, I’d been where the rival East and Hudson Rivers met to form the bay. This time, I was completely surrounded by the body of a single hostile god.

We weren’t that far from the shore, though.

I _reached_ , and the sea surged into the river.

“What are you doing? Stop! Don’t you know what salinization can do to a freshwater ecosystem?”

“Is that really what you should be worrying about here?” I tried to keep the salt and freshwater separate anyway. It wasn’t difficult; there was a density difference, and he was trying as hard as I was not to let them mix.

A wave of water that I controlled slammed into me, freeing my limbs, and with the introduction of a foreign liquid we began fighting for control of the space around us. Every current that tried to push me back was met and matched by one of my own, and every rock that he threw at me bounced off the solidified circle of saltwater that surrounded me. It was a stalemate, but a temporary one. He wouldn’t get tired, and even with the water around us energizing me I’d become exhausted eventually.

I drew Riptide and propelled myself towards him, making it a physical fight. He turned and kicked out at me with both of his hind legs. I soared to the side, still heading forwards, and scored a long, deep cut down his left flank. He bellowed as he bled golden ichor, for the first time sounding a lot like a bull.

I turned and crouched on the far wall, parallel to the bottom of the sinkhole. His wound had already healed, but I’d also hurt his pride. He lowered his head and charged, horn-first.

I’m not proud of what happened next. It was reflex, mostly. I’d fought the Minotaur twice, and had broken off the same spoils of war both times.

I dodged to the side and swung, and Riptide cleaved through his horn like it was butter.

The water went still around us, and we both stared at the horn sinking to the bottom.

“No!”

He reached his power out for it, but it happened to be going through a current of saltwater, and I came to my senses and pulled it back to my hand. I gathered all of my power and pushed up. The surface of the swimming hole exploded, and I hit the bank of the river like a cannonball and rolled up into a crouch.

The entire river rose up in a tidal wave behind me. I gathered all of my own water around my arm in a giant bowl shape and crouched under it until the wave had crashed over me, and then risked popping my head up through the top of my shield to yell at the enraged river.

“If you stop attacking me, I swear on the Styx I’ll give you back your horn!”

Thunder boomed. The deal was struck.

After a shocked minute, all of the water that had surged onto the banks flowed back into the river. The surface went completely still; even the rapids were motionless and mirror-like.

I figured that was as good as I was going to get. I tossed the new cornucopia back into waterhole.

A tendril of water caught it, and the river god rose out of the water like he was on an elevator. He bowed and placed his forehead against the open section. When he lifted his head again, his horn was back in place, like it had never been cut off.

Achelous looked at me with enormous brown eyes made bigger by the bifocals. “Why?”

“I didn’t come here to steal anything. Hercules told me to bring him your horn, and didn’t tell me anything else. I wanted to find out what was going on.” I still had my water-shield between us, now shaped as a lazily swirling circle as tall as I was.

“Ah. Well.” He pawed the water, looking embarrassed. “I apologize for jumping to conclusions.”

“I should have explained that better in the first place, I think. Sorry.” I gestured at the saltwater spinning on my arm. “Do you mind if I…”

“Yes, please do.”

I sent my water back into the river, and followed it downstream until it rejoined the ocean and I released it. As I let it go, a wave of exhaustion hit me and I fell to the ground. That might not have been a good idea- the water had literally been all that was keeping me on my feet.

“The mark of Achilles?” Achelous asked, looking at me intently.

“Yeah.”

“Fascinating. I have only read about it.” His thread of water rose up again and grabbed onto the horn. It came off easily, and he stared at it in bemusement. Achelous reminded me a bit of Annabeth’s dad, actually. They had that same feeling of experimental absentmindedness, when not strafing monsters or attacking intruding demigods.

He put his horn back on, but on the other side this time. He leaned his neck to the right like he was working the kinks out, then took the horn off his head again and stretched on both sides. He looked from me to the horn a couple of times, and finally asked,

“Would you like to come in for lunch?”

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“Have you given up on your quest, then, since you will not give in to Hercules’ demand?” the old river god asked as he munched from a trough of ambrosia. His horn was resting in a depression in the rocks; similar tiny caves around the pool stored hundreds of scrolls. I’d already gotten a lecture on how bound books would never catch on, and had decided to not tell him about my mom’s Nook.

I shrugged and swallowed my bite of pasta. The cornucopia’s food was as good as Achelous had claimed. I could see why Hercules wanted it. “There’s no quest. I just want to visit the Mediterranean. Passage through the Strait isn’t enough reason to mug someone.”

He choked, and coughed until he had cleared his throat. “Are you aware that the monster density in the ancient lands is as high as it has ever been? Many of them did not move with Olympus, and you will be the only adult demigod they have smelled in years.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m not too worried.”

“No, I suppose you wouldn’t be,” he murmured, glancing at his horn. “Why did Hercules send you to me? He does not usually try to make life harder for the demigods who pass this way. He remembers his own life too well.”

“He’s jealous, I think. I turned down the chance to become a god- um, actually, did I ever introduce myself?” That had been rude. My mom would have been disappointed in me, diving into a guy’s home and fighting him without ever giving my name.

“We do not often get visitors on this island, but the story of how Poseidon’s mortal son chose to remain mortal _has_ reached this far, Percy Jackson. Olympian gossip travels on winged feet, and I have reception for Hephaestus TV.”

“Oh.” I took another bite of spaghetti to cover my embarrassment. I had a rep, apparently. It didn’t look like it was going to be anything but trouble, if Hercules was anything to go by. “Well, Hercules doesn’t seem to be enjoying being a god, you know? He seemed ok when he thought I was on a quest, but when I told him I was just being a tourist, he wasn’t happy.”

“Ah. That would have done it,” Achelous said, sighing. “He did not have an easy life, you know. Constantly moving, always on some quest or chasing some monster. Perhaps he was happy when he was married to Megara, but then Hera drove him mad and he killed his wife and children. He did his twelve Labors as penance for that, and his next marriage was no more successful even though he was married to the finest woman in the world. Seeing you enjoying this time of peace would likely have made him very bitter.”

I frowned, trying to remember the story. “Didn’t his wife kill him?”

“It was an accident! Deianara wouldn’t have hurt a fly!”

“You knew her?”

A scroll floated out of an alcove to my left and landed in front of him. He nudged it open with his hooves and passed it over. The section he had opened it to showed a small picture of a beautiful dark-haired woman with a teasing smile.

“Deianara. Princess of Calydon, and my fiancée, until Hercules challenged me for her hand. He insisted on combat, and broke off my right horn. I’ve never forgiven him for that. But it was even worse for poor Deianara, who picked the handsome, flashy hero over a steady husband who would have treated her well.”

“Um, how much can you shift your shape? Like, are you always a bull, or…”

“And, of course,” he continued, pointedly ignoring me, “it ended tragically. It wasn’t her fault; she just listened to some very bad advice. Hercules killed the centaur Nessus when he tried to kidnap her, and as revenge he told her as he was dying that his blood would keep her husband faithful. When Hercules continued acting like a son of Zeus… well. She spread the blood on his favorite shirt.”

“The Stoll brothers did that to one of Artemis’s hunters a few years ago,” I recalled. “She was sick for days.”

“They must have been cautious, then, because the full vial of blood gave Hercules a very painful death. When Deianara realized what she had done, she…” He trailed off and drew a hoof across his blue bull’s neck. “Hercules was made a god and married Hebe, the goddess of youth, but instead of spending time with her on Mount Olympus he prefers to sulk down here mourning his mortal life. My presence on this island reminds him of his failures, and especially of the woman who finally killed him. And _his_ presence reminds me of the woman I loved, who should have been my wife. I have never been quite sure which one of us the gods are punishing.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” I waved off the amphorae of nectar he floated in my direction. I didn’t need healing, just food and rest; Achelous had given me the food, and the water around us was substituting for a nap. “I’ve met a couple of his old girlfriends. One was the nymph of the river he diverted to clean the Aegean stables. She said the waste completely trashed her river.”

“Terrible.” He shook his head. “Heroes often don’t think of the ones they leave behind… present company excepted, of course.”

“Thanks.” I didn’t want to be like that. I wouldn’t use anyone and leave them.

When I finished, I floated my plate back to the cornucopia and reached over to shake his hoof. “Lord Achelous, it’s been a pleasure, but I should be getting back to my ship. Sorry about… well, about cutting your horn off.”

“Quite all right, young demigod. It was horribly uncomfortable, having only one horn, and I can put it back on whenever I choose to do so. I apologize again for attacking first.” He ushered me to the top of the pool, and waved me off when I surfaced.

_Do come visit if you are ever in the area again, won’t you? And be careful when you do get to the old lands. There are monsters still lurking there that are the equal of any you fought in the war._

On that cheerful note, I walked back to the beach and dove in. The smart thing to do would be to avoid the confrontation with the god with a chip on his shoulder, and just swim back to the _Firefly_ and sail away.

I surfaced on Hercules’s beach anyway.

“You failed,” he stated smugly, looking at my empty hands. “I’m not surprised.”

“I decided not to try,” I corrected with a smile. I stayed in the water, just in case. “I refuse your quest. He’s a nice old guy. Very polite, once he figured out I wasn’t after his horn. We did lunch.”

Hercules raised an eyebrow. “No horn, no entrance.”

“Have you ever heard of the Suez Canal?” I stretched my arms and rolled my shoulders. “I have nowhere I need to be. There’s no deadline I need to meet. Sailing around Africa will be fun. I’ll get there eventually.”

I turned away. “See you around. If I ever come back, I mean, since you’ll still be here. Bye.”

“I grant you passage.”

I froze just as I was getting ready to dive under, and turned back.

“What? Are you seriously going to try to pretend this was a test of character?”

He snorted. “Hades, no. I just think you’ll die faster this way. If you want to be mortal so badly, I’ll help you get to Elysium that much sooner.”

He knew something I didn’t. That was the default state of my life, though. “Elysium’s for underachievers. I’ll take reincarnation.”

I dove and darted back to my ship as the pillars and the island shimmered and disappeared.

_Live forever in the stars, Zoe. He got his reward._

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They weren’t kidding about the monsters of the Mediterranean. As soon as I passed through the Pillars, it felt like the entire sea paused and thought _‘fresh meat_ ’.  

 _Storm spirits at three o’clock_! Blackjack yelled as he came in for a landing half an hour out from Hercules’ island.

I summoned a waterspout off the forward port side (Blackjack couldn’t tell time) to get the horse-shaped wind monsters off of his tail. One got close enough to be sucked in, and spun around the spout three times before shooting out in a perfect line to my waiting sword.

The rest of the herd decided they were needed elsewhere.

 _Pests_ , Blackjack grumbled. _I can’t believe they’ve spread this far._

None of the demigods in America had ever seen an _anemoi thuellai_ before the war ended. Chiron said they’d been created when Typhon was defeated. They certainly acted like it- they had the same grim determination to attack the children of the gods that their father had towards our parents.

“They might not have,” I said as I let the waterspout go and pulled up a wave to clean up the dust. “They could have been here since the first time the gods trapped Typhon. Remember where we are.”

 _Yeah_. _Everything started here. Wow._ He hesitated, and then asked, _Do you think we can find where Medusa died the first time?_

“Why… oh. To see where Pegasus was born?” The place where his species began. Blackjack still managed to surprise me sometimes.

_Yeah. It would be nice to visit._

“I don’t see why not. The Gorgons lived on an island, I think. If Annabeth doesn’t know where it happened, we might be able to ask Rachel.”

_You don’t need to ask the Oracle, boss. It’s not that important._

“It’s as important as anything else we’re doing here,” I pointed out. I went to grab a few drachmas and my maps of the Mediterranean, and made a rainbow from sea spray when I climbed back on deck. “Oh, Iris, Goddess of the Rainbow, please accept my offering. Show me Annabeth Chase.”

The image showed her on the subway, probably heading to her morning classes. “Percy? What’s up? Where are you?”

“We just got into the Mediterranean. Hercules is guarding the Strait of Gibraltar, did you know?”

She thought about it for a second. “The ‘doorway to Olympus’, huh? Ouch.”

“Yeah, remind me to tell you about that when I get back to New York. Right now, though, do you happen to know what island Pegasus was born on? Blackjack wanted to try finding it.”

“The myths say Libya…” Annabeth said slowly, “…but that was what they called most of North Africa back then. It would have been somewhere near the Atlas Mountains, because Perseus ran into Atlas after he’d gotten Medusa’s head and turned him into stone.”

I hadn’t known that, and I thought I’d known the full story- it had been one of my favorites as a kid, for obvious reasons.

She shrugged at my startled look. “He got better. Or he had to climb out of Tartarus and got put back to the same punishment, I’m not sure which.”

“Did Atlas get turned into stone before or after Hercules ran into him?” I asked.

“Before. Perseus was Hercules’s great-grandfather on his mother’s side.”

And they were both sons of Zeus. The divine half of my family tree still gave me headaches.

“Perseus rescued Andromeda in Ethiopia, and had to fly east across the Atlas Mountains and the Sahara to get there,” Annabeth continued, “so you might want to find the original peak in the Atlas Mountains and try to retrace his flight from there. It would probably be one of the taller ones.”

“We’ll try that. Thanks.”

“Good luck. Let me know how it goes!”

Ten minutes later, I’d figured out where the Atlas Mountains were, and pointed out the highest peak on the map to Blackjack.

“Mount Toubkal. We’ll go here first, and look at the other tall mountains if that’s not it.”

Above us, the sails shifted and turned us south, to Morocco.

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By late afternoon, we’d docked in the nearby port of Tetouan and Blackjack and I were getting completely lost in the medina, a walled-off section of the city with roads so twisted and narrow that cars couldn’t fit through them. I’d seen a few mopeds and bicycles, but most of the traffic on the crowded streets was of the two- or four-footed variety.   There were at least a dozen donkeys on the street, carrying everything from stacked cans of Coke to televisions.

“Watch out! Watch out!”

I moved to make room for the shouting boy, who held the lead on a donkey carrying a bale of cloth larger than she was. The bale of cloth brushed against Blackjack as they passed, unbalancing it a bit, and the donkey glanced back at us and said something I couldn’t quite make out.

 _Yeah, and_ your _mother was a donkey, so I wouldn’t be talking,_ Blackjack snapped back.

“You could understand her?”

_Huh? Her accent was a bit thick, but not too bad. You couldn’t?_

“She’s not a horse.” I listened to the words around us for a bit. There were at least three languages being spoken on the streets around me, but underneath the babble was something I could hear with the same power that let me talk with fish and horses. It was more of a mixture of mental speech and body language than of anything verbal, and with the donkeys it really did sound like they had a thick accent. The shape of it was familiar, and I felt like if I listened to it for long enough I might be able to make it out, but right now I was getting nothing.

“A bridle for your horse, sir?” a shop owner asked as we wandered by. “Best leatherwork in the city!”

Blackjack would kick me if I tried. “No thanks.”

The leatherworker, a deeply-tanned black-haired guy a bit shorter than me, didn’t give up. “A saddle, perhaps? Or a purse for your wife?”

I paused, and figured that I might as well get some of the Christmas shopping out of the way. I went into his stall and found a purse with geometrical patterns that my mom would like. It didn’t have a marked price, so I asked,

“How much is this one?”

“One hundred and fifty dinars.”

Less than twenty dollars. I’d changed some money after I’d gotten through customs, and had more than enough. When I handed him the right amount, though, the shopkeeper looked like he’d sucked on a lemon.

“European?” he asked as he pocketed the bills and handed me the purse.

“American,” I said.

“Is it your first day in the country?”

“Yeah, how’d you know?” I was in jeans and a sweatshirt, but the people on the street were about evenly split between Western clothing and the traditional robe-dress thing with a pointed hood that the store owner was wearing, so I didn’t really stand out much. Even Blackjack fit in well; the people around us seemed to be seeing pretty much everything but the wings.

“You took the first price.”

“You overcharged me?” I asked, surprised.

“There is no overcharging, just what you are willing to pay and what you are not willing to pay. Foreigners are willing to pay much more, and so I could have asked much more.” He shook his head. “Your Arabic is excellent, but you should learn to haggle. Welcome to Morocco.”

“Thanks.” I paused, considering. I needed something for Paul, and it could be fun. “How much for those slippers?”

He smiled, slightly shark-like. “Two hundred dinars.”

“I’ll give you fifty.”

“I could go as low as one hundred and eighty.”

“I do need to go around the world on my current budget, you know. Seventy-five.”

“One hundred and fifty, and if I reduce it any more my children will be forced to wear rags…”

Ten minutes later I’d stuffed the purse and shoes into my backpack and had rejoined Blackjack, who had been listening in on my side of the conversation.

 _Did you get a good price, boss?_ Blackjack asked as we went down the darkening street.

“I have no idea. Let me find somewhere to eat before we head back to the ship.”

As the sun set, a haunting cry started broadcasting from a minaret in the distance. It was the first time I’d heard the call to prayer. _“God is great. God is great. I bear witness that there is no god but God…”_

“We are not in Kansas anymore, Blackjack.”

_When were you ever in Kansas?_

“Never mind.”

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The next day Blackjack and I flew south above the High Atlas mountains, and figured out pretty quickly that finding the highest mountain in a chain was impossible when you were looking down on it. We wound up flying over the closest city, Marrakesh, and followed the road southeast until it ended at Toubkal National Park. We landed briefly to get lunch and better directions at Sidi Chamarouch, a small hamlet centered on a Muslim shrine, and from there flew directly to the mountain they pointed at instead of following the trail.

Blackjack landed on the rocky plateau on the summit of Mount Toubkal, which was marked with an odd pyramidal metal frame covered in graffiti. I looked around us at the snow-covered Atlas Mountains. If Atlas had spent five thousand years here, at least he’d had a nice view.

No-one else was around; November probably wasn’t a popular time for the tourists.

_Is this it, boss?_

“I don’t know. Let’s look around and see if we can find anything.” Something should have been left behind, even after Olympus moved across the Atlantic. A branch from the apple tree, one of Ladon’s scales, _something_.

Two hours later, I was considering calling it quits until I’d found a snowblower. Or a fire-breathing dragon- I wasn’t picky. If Atlas or the Garden of the Hesperides had been in the area, we’d found no trace of them.

 _What do you think, boss?_ Blackjack asked.

“I think we might need to talk to Rachel. There’s no guarantee Atlas was ever here. Mount Tamalpais was the tallest mountain in the area, but I don’t think it’s the tallest one in California.”

_California? Is that where the old devil wound up?_

I whirled around, reaching for Riptide. There was nothing there, but that had _not_ been Blackjack’s voice.

_Boss? What’s wrong? What was that?_

Blackjack was looking around in alarm. I wasn’t sure what the language the voice had spoken in, but it hadn’t been English.

“Come out!” I yelled.

 _No need for that, demigod. I mean you no harm,_ the voice said in a dry, amused whisper that seemed to come from everywhere around us.

“Who are you? Or what are you?” I asked a bit more calmly. I hadn’t actually uncapped Riptide yet, but the whatever-it-was had recognized it as a weapon already and there wasn’t anything to attack. I put the pen back in my pocket without making any sudden movements.

_A good choice._

The wind blowing around the mountain suddenly started to center on a spot in front of me, and whirled up a brief snowcloud that turned almost immediately to steam. When the steam started to clear, I saw something that could almost have been fire. If fire had intelligence and a physical form, if fire didn’t need fuel or make smoke, then it might have looked like the monster in front of me.

Then I blinked, and the figure was a grey-bearded man in brown robes and a turban who wouldn’t have looked out of place in any of the Berber towns we’d been flying over.

“Who are you, and what brings you to Mount Toubkal? We have not seen your kind here since the bearer of your sky moved to America,” he said, studying me carefully.

“I’m Percy Jackson, and this is Blackjack. We were just in the area and wanted to find where Atlas and the Garden had been originally. We’re looking for the island of the Gorgons.”

“A son of Neptune?” He raised an eyebrow at the little trickles of snowmelt at his feet that were worming their way towards me. I forced myself to relax, and the water stopped moving.

“Poseidon,” I corrected, and he nodded slightly, like I’d said something profound.

“I am Sidi Chamarouch, leader of the djinn of this land,” he said.

“You’re a _genie_?” I blurted out, and then bit my tongue before I could ask about lamps.

 _Really? Does he do wishes?_ Blackjack asked.

I decided not to translate that. I didn’t think we’d managed to annoy him yet, but the day was young, and this guy was not something I wanted to fight if I could avoid it.

He studied me for another second or two, and then nodded again and seemed to come to a decision about something.

“Will you join me for tea?” He made a slight gesture to the side, and a patch of snow was suddenly replaced by a patterned carpet. A second later, a low-slung table with an elaborate silver teapot and three glass cups appeared on the carpet. “I would enjoy hearing what my old neighbors have been up to since they moved.”

“Um… thanks, but Atlas and I weren’t exactly friends. I’m not sure how much I can tell you.” I followed him to the table anyway. The air suddenly warmed up as I sat on the carpet, and I had to take off my jacket. He poured the steaming tea from high above the glasses like he’d had a lot of practice, without letting a drop spill.

“Indulge an old djinni’s curiosity, nevertheless,” he said. “Does he still support your sky? We heard whispers of the conflict from the south wind, but your Notus so changeable it’s rarely worth asking him for the specifics.”

“Yeah, he’s still there. Atlas managed to get one of the gods to take the sky, but got tricked into taking it back about a week later. He sat out most of the war.”

I waited until he’d drunk from his own cup before picking mine up. His twitching lips made me pretty sure that he knew what I was doing, and that he was indulging me, but I wasn’t about to get embarrassed; accepting drinks from friendly magical strangers had already gotten me turned into a guinea pig once. It was a sweet frothy green tea with mint leaves, which was sort of a strange combination, but it was a hot drink and I’d been in the air or moving through snow all day.

At his inquiring gesture, I told him how Atlas and Luke had gotten Artemis to take the sky. Even though I wasn’t really getting the impression that Chamarouch and Atlas had been close friends, I decided not to mention that I was the one who’d been holding it when Artemis had tricked Atlas into taking it back.

Chamarouch shook his head resignedly. “I wish I could say I was surprised. He never was one to think things through.”

“You don’t care?”

“Atlas was not a restful neighbor. One always had to wonder what would happen if he chose to drop his unwelcome burden,” he said, “but I do regret that the Garden moved. I did not visit his daughters, of course, but they used to sing at sunset, and could be heard throughout the mountains by those with the ears to hear.”

We talked for another few minutes about other minor stuff- where I was from, my trip so far, that sort of thing. Every time I tried to bring the subject around to the island I was actually looking for, he politely and firmly changed the subject. That continued until we’d both finished three cups of tea, and he banished the tea set with a flick of his fingers.

“And so, to business. It was not so long ago that Morocco was under Western rule, and even though Atlas no longer resides here, the influence of your family remains greater than many of my sons would prefer. You seem an honest man, and so I will simply ask. What are your intentions in this land?” His eyes, just for a second, were made of living fire before darkening back to brown.

I swallowed and spread my hands. I got the feeling that lying would be a very bad idea right then. Fortunately, I didn’t need to. “I want to find the Gorgon’s island, like I said. I’d like to explore the country a bit after that; I have a friend who’d never forgive me if I didn’t visit Casablanca when I had the chance. I don’t know anything about your politics, but I’ve never attacked anything that didn’t attack me first.”

He was silent for a long moment, judging me. Even the wind around us had gone still. Finally, he nodded. “Very well. If you come in peace, we will not hinder you. You will be watched.”

“That’s fine,” I said, relaxing. “I’m pretty sure I was being watched most of the time in Ireland. I’ve got nothing to hide.”

“Why did you come here to seek the Island of the Gorgons?”

“We’re looking for where the first Pegasus was born,” I said, gesturing to Blackjack, who had been listening to my side of the conversation silently, “and the myths said that Perseus went east across Africa. A friend suggested that if I found Atlas’s mountain I could retrace his flight. Since you’ve told us this is it, we’ll be heading west from here, unless you’ve got a better suggestion. Were you here when Perseus turned Atlas to stone?”

“Certainly not! How old do you think I am?” he asked. “No, I came with the armies of the Prophet, in the first century after his death. I have heard of the incident, though. Atlas complained about the sons of Zeus quite a bit.”

“…the Prophet?” I repeated. “You’re Muslim?”

“Of course,” he said simply.

“Are you…” I trailed off, not quite sure how to express what I wanted to ask. Mom and I had always celebrated Christmas, of course, and that didn’t change when I found out that the Greek gods existed, but the Christmas carols were about the only religious part of it. Most of the people I knew who also knew about our world were the same way. “Have you met your God?”

Chamarouch smiled slightly. “No.”

“Then why… I mean, you’ve met Atlas, and the Titans are basically gods that chose the losing side. You said you’ve met a wind god, and I’m sure there are others around here, so… um, why?” I asked, then thought about it and shook my head. “Sorry, never mind, that was a really personal question.”

“It was, yes, but from the son of a Greek ‘god’, it is a reasonable one,” he said, still amused. “This land has seen many beings that call themselves gods. The local Berber gods, the Egyptians and Greeks and Phoenicians, their successors the Romans and Carthaginians, the Greeks again, and eventually the Persians … they struggled with each other for power here long before my people settled in the Maghreb, and their various influences have waxed and waned ever since. We have seen empires rise and fall, and their gods with them. In the end, I, and most of my people, would rather pray to a God who is great, than to any of the ones we have met.”

He rose to his feet, making it clear that the conversation (or audience, whatever) was over.

“You friend’s idea has merit. I would suggest that you next visit the Purple Isles, off the coast and slightly to the north-west. They have been settled off and on for thousands of years. Your Gorgons may well have chosen to hide there, on the western edge of the world.”

“The Purple Isles,” I repeated for Blackjack’s benefit as I got up and put my jacket back on. “We’ll look around there, then. Thanks.”

 _Let’s make it tomorrow, boss. We’ve still got to fly home, and it’ll be dark in a couple of hours,_ Blackjack said.

“Tomorrow,” I agreed, as the carpet underneath my feet disappeared and the bubble of warm air popped. When I turned around, I wasn’t too surprised to see that Chamarouch had disappeared with his stuff, leaving only a bare patch of dirt and rock behind.

SotWS_SotWS_SotWS_ SotWS_ SotWS_ SotWS_ SotWS

Next morning we flew back to the Atlantic coast, although we avoided the Strait just in case Hercules’ border check included air travel too. We found the group of little islands easily enough, and landed on a beach near an old ruin on the largest one, which was maybe two miles long and a mile wide. From what we’d been able to see from above, the grassy island was the only one with cliffs high enough above sea level to have caves.

“OK,” I said, dismounting, “I guess we should just poke around and see if we can find anything-

_Boss, stop!_

I froze. I didn’t think I’d ever heard him sound that scared.

_Look down._

There was a grey and brown viper, about five feet long, on the rock at our feet. It raised its head up, hissing, and then raised up its _other_ head. The one on its tail.

I’d met monsters with multiple heads before, sure, but they’d at least had the decency to keep them all on the same end and to have the tail where it should be. This one made me wonder how it did certain necessary bodily functions.

“Don’t move, Blackjack. Monsters go for demigods first,” I whispered.  I’d be fine. He wouldn’t be. “Here, snaky snaky snaky…”                                                                                                                                                                                              

I began shuffling away, getting both pointed heads focused on me as I drew Riptide. I put my foot down a bit harder as soon as I was sure I had the thing’s attention, and it struck as fast as… well, as fast as a striking snake.

I swung and missed completely as the first head sank its fangs through my jeans, hit my shin, and retracted. The second head immediately whipped through my legs and bit my other ankle from behind, and then the snake had darted between me and Blackjack, with one head focused on each of us.

It had hit me twice, in less time than it had taken me to blink. I could feel little trickles of venom running down the skin where I’d been bitten. And I hadn’t even managed to touch it.

“Blackjack, when I move, go.”

_Right, boss._

I gave up on precision, dropped my sword, and dove onto the thing. No matter how fast it was, it didn’t see that one coming. The head facing me hit my throat on the way down, with no more effect than either of its other strikes had had, and then I was on top of it and stopping the other head from attacking Blackjack, giving him time to get into the air-

-except that now he was trampling it into ichorous goo in front of me.

Okay then.

_Ha! Try to bite me, will you!_

“We need to… work on our communication,” I grunted as I got a grip on the thrashing body under me and started getting up.

_Why? Our communication is excellent!_

He backed away as I took hold of the snake’s other neck and squeezed. According to my mom, I’d done this as a baby once. After a minute, the snake had dissolved into golden dust that drifted away on the wind.

 _What was that thing?_ Blackjack asked.

“I don’t remember the name, but I think it means we’re on the right island.” This part of the Perseus legend I knew already; it was the sort of gory detail that had stuck with me as a little kid. Annabeth told me later that the snakes were called amphisbaena. “When Perseus was flying back to Greece, Medusa’s blood dripped out of the bag he was holding it in, and when it hit the ground it made monster snakes. They’re supposed to live in the desert. If they’re here, this is probably where Medusa was killed.”

Since there were probably more of the monster snakes around, Blackjack started searching the island from the air while I wandered around the cliffs looking for caves. After about half an hour, I almost tripped over an oddly-shaped stone in the grass. When I picked it up and looked at it a bit closer, then turned it over and squinted… it looked a bit like a bird of prey. Half of one, anyway- like it had been flying, and then fallen down and shattered. Now all that was left was a rock with weathered lumps that might have once been a wing and head.

I started looking at the rock face a lot more carefully, and finally found a cave entrance protected from the wind and the casual eye by a rock outcropping- and, maybe, a bit of Mist. I hadn’t noticed that the outcropping wasn’t part of the surrounding rocks until I’d actually stepped past it.

I didn’t go in yet. This wasn’t my quest. I let out a piercing whistle, perfected on New York cabbies, and waited until Blackjack soared down to join me.

_Is this it?_

“It’s the only cave I’ve found,” I said, shrugging. “Let’s find out.”

Blackjack wriggled through the opening, which was narrow enough that he had to fold his wings pretty tightly to his body. I followed him into a fairly spacious room that looked a bit too smooth to be natural. The air inside was still and musty, and did feel like it hadn’t been disturbed in thousands of years. It made me wonder how long ago Medusa’s sisters had faded.

 _This is it_ , Blackjack said quietly. He walked forward hesitantly, almost reverently, like he was in a church or a temple.

“How are you sure?”

There was a dark stain on the rock floor in the back of the cave at a good place for a bed. Medusa had been asleep when the first Perseus killed her. Around the stain were two sets of prints. One set was human-shaped, hand and footprints that looked like they’d been made by a little kid. The other set were tiny hoofprints, made by a newborn foal.

I took off my backpack and handed Blackjack the golden apple I’d picked that morning. After he’d taken it in his mouth and put it next to the stain, I walked back outside to give him some privacy. Pegasus had been a son of Poseidon, but my dad had a lot of kids, and, like my namesake, I’d killed his mother Medusa. The cave didn’t quite have the same meaning for me.

Eventually he squeezed out of the cave, and I asked, “Done?”

_Yeah. Let’s get out of here before the rest of the snakes smell you._

I mounted and we headed out over the strip of sea that separated the islands from the mainland.

“So where to now? Are you getting hungry?”

_No, I ate the apple._

I blinked, and then started laughing.

 _What?_ _He’s a constellation now,_ Blackjack said. _It’s not like he’d be able to appreciate it._

“Okay, okay,” I said. “Do you want to do anything else while we’re here?”

_They’ve got camels, right? I want to race a camel._

“South it is.”

Over the next couple of weeks we visited the Sahara (Blackjack lost, but never admitted it; I was pretty sure that taking to the air to catch up counted as an automatic forfeit), took enough pictures of Casablanca to convince Rachel that the city looked nothing like the one in the movie, nearly fell out of the air from the smell when we made the mistake of flying over the great tanneries of Fez, and got hassled so much in the markets of Marrakech that I started using the Mist to make vendors ignore us (‘these are not the tourists you’re looking for’). I’d eaten couscous bare-handed from a common bowl, and had immediately gotten a quick and comprehensive lecture on the etiquette and which hand to use. (The right, for everything except going to the toilet. Being left-handed would have sucked.) Blackjack fell in love with the local doughnuts, which they fried in stalls on the street, dipped in sugar or honey, and handed to us still warm.

After my first week in Morocco and an Iris-message to Chiron to make sure that Mrs. O’Leary had had enough time in Camp Half-Blood to recover from the trans-Atlantic journey, I called her back across the ocean. I was going to be hugging the coast most of the time for the rest of the trip, so I probably wouldn’t need to send her back alone again for a while.

The watchers that Chamarouch had mentioned had been blending in pretty well, but after a massive hellhound materialized on my deck, I started noticing that several of the nearby stray dogs and random birds were paying a lot of attention to her sleeping form. After she’d woken up, I took her to a coastal plain near the Spanish-owned city of Mellila, where we were docked that night, and just threw around her fetching-shield for a while. Nothing to see here, just a guy and his dog playing fetch… it seemed to work, and the attention faded when we didn’t do anything else unusual.

Before dawn on our final day, I took a basket with nine fresh apples and set it down next to the bored-looking brown dog on the dock. “We’re heading north on the morning tide. Thanks for your hospitality. Can you get these to your leader for me?”

The dog looked at me blankly for long enough to make me wonder if I’d actually just given a present to a stray dog. Then it snorted once in amusement and disappeared, taking the basket with it.

After I jumped back on board the ship, the ropes cast off and the receding tide tugged the _Firefly_ back out to open water, and we turned north, to Europe.

 

SotWS_SotWS_SotWS_ SotWS_ SotWS_ SotWS_ SotWS

 **_August 12, early morning, Japan Standard Time. Five years after the end of the Second Olympian War_ ** _._

_An enormous eagle soared above the clouds with a fish wriggling in its claws. The eagle’s grip loosened for an instant, and the fish popped free. As it fell, a wingless dragon emerged from the cloudbank beneath them and caught the fish in its jaws. As it inspected the windfall, the eagle turned, saw the dragon and realized its burden was missing._

_The eagle dove, talons outstretched and screaming a battle-cry. The dragon opened its mouth and roared back, and the fish escaped once more._

_I was the fish, and as I plummeted, I saw the world in flames beneath me._

I woke up.

“Demigod dreams…” I muttered, rubbing my face wearily.

I didn’t think I was going to be getting back to sleep any time soon, so I pulled on a loose pair of sweatpants against the chill of the morning and opened the sliding door into the garden to look at the setting moon. It was Tsukuyomi- if I squinted I could even make out the armor- but straight south a few thousand miles, Artemis would be soaring over Australia. Both gods were the moon, and at the same time the moon was a ball of barren rock reflecting sunlight onto the planet it orbited. It hurt my head now just as much as when Apollo had tried to explain it to Nico when we’d first met, and I tried not to think about it a lot. Except in the darkest hour before dawn, apparently.

I glanced back as the screen to the inner hallway slid open and my lovers entered. Amaterasu was in full court regalia, with all the dozens of layers of tissue-thin silk, and Tsukuyomi had on his decorative armor. I glanced outside again, and, yep, Tsukuyomi was still busy setting. Some things you just didn’t get used to.

“Hey,” I said quietly, as they both paused on the threshold in surprise at seeing me awake. “What’s with the clothes?”

“A confrontation with spying foreigners,” Tsukuyomi answered at the same volume, just as reluctant to disturb the peace of the morning. “You are up early.”

“Couldn’t sleep. Weird dreams. Was it the Koschei?” The Russian monster had the unpleasant habit of kidnapping beautiful women from around Eurasia and keeping them trapped in his garden until some creative hero managed to figure out how he’d hidden his heart and killed him again. There were rumors going around that he’d reformed after his last death a couple of centuries ago. If they turned out to be true, I’d already decided that I’d be sailing north to Siberia after visiting Vietnam.

“Their manners were just as bad.” Amaterasu removed the many outer layers of her robes with a gesture, leaving only two of the inner silk robes on. “I need to be distracted.”

I let my smile turn wicked, and was rewarded by Amaterasu’s blush and Tsukuyomi’s low chuckle. Good; they’d seemed even tenser than usual. Whatever the meeting had been about, they didn’t seem happy about the result.

“A _story_. Tell me a story.”

It was my turn to laugh as I went back and flopped on the low-slung bed, Amaterasu’s concession to my Western sensibilities and refusal to come to a palace just to sleep on a glorified mat on the floor. “You’ve got the wrong guy for that. The only bedtime stories my mom told me turned out to be real.”

“Most human stories are, one way or another.” Amaterasu joined me on the bed, tugging until my head was pillowed on her stomach and my body was angled across the bed. I extended a hand to Tsukuyomi, who shook his head slightly and went to look out over the garden. No real surprise- the man almost never even touched his own wife outside of bed.

“A story, then. What would you like to hear?”

“One of your own,” Tsukuyomi suggested. “You fought in your civil war, before you left your land behind. Tell us how your side won.”

“ _Civil_ war?” I snorted. “Never heard it called that before.”

“Sons against fathers, brothers against brothers- what else would it be called?”

“I guess. It was the gods against the Titans, and we never really thought of them as part of ‘us’ even though Kronos was the father of half the Olympians, but the demigods- yeah.” I swallowed.   Luke with the Titans, Travis and Connor at my side, and so many other examples- “Yeah, the gods against their kids, and brothers against brothers. And sisters.”

Amaterasu’s fingers were combing slowly through my hair. “Did you fight any of your siblings?”

“No- I guess you wouldn’t know, but after, um…” Some topics I’d figured should probably be avoided. (On my own, without needing Ryujin’s warning, thank you very much.) Anything about the divine half of my family was one of the big ones. World War II was the other.

Churchill had been a son of Poseidon, but Britain hadn’t been as involved in the Pacific Theater as the United States had been. Roosevelt, though, had been a son of Zeus. I was pretty sure that if I’d been Zeus’s kid, Amaterasu would have sent me directly to the underworld as soon as we met instead of telling me to walk there. General MacArthur had been Athena’s son, and the bombs had been designed by his siblings and by the children of Hephaestus.   They’d asked, though, so...

“After World War Two, and all of the… um, all of the damage, Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades swore a binding oath not to have demigod kids so it wouldn’t happen again.”

Amaterasu scoffed. “Clearly their honor is as lacking as their manners.”

Ouch. I wanted to defend my dad, but, well, I was in her lap. It was pretty clear proof that the oath hadn’t been kept. “My mom’s a great woman, and Dad loved her. She would have been worth anything. And, anyway, it would have happened eventually. You can’t fight the Fates, and there was a prophecy saying that eventually one of us would be born.

_A half-blood of the eldest gods_

_Shall reach sixteen against all odds_

_And see the world in endless sleep_

_The hero's soul, cursed blade shall reap_

_A single choice shall end his days_

_Olympus to preserve or raze._

“That’s the other reason they swore their oath, to try to stop the prophecy, but it didn’t work, obviously. I wasn’t even the oldest of us. Hades kept his oath, but he had two kids already. He put them somewhere where they wouldn’t age to hide them from Zeus. And about fifty years later, Zeus had a daughter, and she was older than me, but she got turned into a tree for a few years and then decided to be a Hunter of Artemis so she wouldn’t ever turn sixteen, since they don’t get older.”

Wow, even in my head that hadn’t made sense.

“So you were the first of their children to reach the fatal age, and the hero in your prophecy,” Amaterasu summarized. “How are you alive?”

“I was the half-blood who turned sixteen, but I wasn’t the hero. It was Luke.” I took a deep breath, closing my eyes, trying to figure out how to explain that complicated relationship.

“He was a son of Hermes, and a… friend.” _You shall be betrayed by one who calls you a friend._ “At least, he pretended to be. He helped me settle in when I first found out I was a demigod, gave me my first swordfighting lessons… he tried to set it up so I’d be dragged into Tartarus, and summoned a pit scorpion when that didn’t work. The scar on my hand.”

I flexed my fingers, feeling it. I didn’t actually have that many scars. Nectar and ambrosia worked miracles, and I’d been protected by the Styx for five years now. They’d never asked for the details, and I hadn’t ever volunteered them.

My lovers stayed silent, letting me gather my thoughts. Some bedtime story this was turning out to be- they were probably sorry they’d asked.

“He was angry, I guess. Angry at the gods. Angry at his dad. His mom had tried to become the Delphic Oracle and went crazy, and he blamed Hermes for not helping them. He was Thalia’s best friend- she was Zeus’s daughter- and her dad turned her into a tree because she’d been swarmed by monsters and was dying, and Luke blamed him for not helping her earlier, and all the gods for ignoring their children. Hermes loved him, I _know_ he did, but- well, you’d know the problems better than I would, I guess.”

“It is difficult, yes,” Tsukuyomi said quietly, while Amaterasu’s hands kept moving through my hair. “Interfering to solve the problems of our mortal descendants almost inevitably causes greater damage.”

“It was even worse for Hermes, I think. He knew it was coming, and that Luke would be the hero in the prophecy, and he wasn’t able to _do_ anything. He blew up at Annabeth when she couldn’t-” I broke off. I was getting ahead of myself.

“Luke was Kronos’s lieutenant. He recruited demigods for him, directed his forces, even gave Kronos’s orders to the other Titans. The gods had cut Kronos up and thrown him into Tartarus, and Luke helped pull his spirit back together. When Kronos needed a body when he was resurrected, he took Luke’s.

“Kronos had gathered his forces to attack Olympus. The Titans had released Typhon, the storm giant, and all of the Olympians who could fight had gone to try to bind him again. They knew they were leaving Olympus mostly undefended, but Zeus figured they didn’t really have a choice, ‘cause they needed everyone and if Typhon had gotten to Olympus then Western civilization would be dead anyway. He was probably right, too, since they were losing until my dad came with reinforcements, and he’d had to leave the fight under the ocean to be there.

“So that left Olympus defended from the air by the wind gods, and from the ground by the loyal demigods, Artemis’s hunters, a bunch of nature spirits and centaurs, and a lot of automatons. We were against Kronos and some of the other titans, some of the minor gods, a few dozen demigods, and an army of monsters. We held them off for two days, until Hades brought an army of the dead and took them from behind, and broke the attack.”

“And what was your role in the battle?” Amaterasu asked. Her hands were still moving hypnotically through my hair, and my thoughts had become slow and calm despite the bad memories.

“I led the defense,” I whispered. Modesty was impossible through the haze that had fallen over my mind. “I bribed the river gods so they could not come at us by water. I destroyed the Minotaur and defeated the Clazmonian Sow.   I routed the army that came over the Williamsburg Bridge singlehandedly, and then shattered the bridge with a swordstroke so they could not use it again. I summoned the hurricane that brought Hyperion, the Lord of Light, to a standstill, and weakened him enough for the satyrs to entomb him in a tree. I held our hope between my hands and did not give it up until it had a worthy guardian.”

“Ah.” Her sigh drifted across my forehead as her hand stilled. “And at such a young age. How foolish of us, to assume, when we know you so well.”

I opened my eyes for the first time in several minutes and glanced up at her drowsily, beginning to sit up. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing of consequence.” Her hands began combing through my hair again, and I relaxed.

“Tell us of the death of Kronos, your grandfather.” Tsukuyomi finally left the garden door, and walked over to stand by the bed and look down at me.

“He’d gotten past us, and set up a barrier around Olympus with us still inside while Hades was dealing with his army. Annabeth and I caught up with him in the throne room.” Him and Ethan. Poor Ethan… “We fought. He was winning. He could control time, and it’s hard to do much against that. Then Annabeth got hurt, and Luke started fighting his control. He loved her. But whenever I attacked, Kronos took control back, and I didn’t know how to kill him. He only had one vulnerable spot, and I didn’t know where it was.

“He was still in Luke’s body, but he was recovering his full power fast and a mortal body can’t hold a god. Luke’s body was burning away a little more each second. We had no time left, and Luke knew where his weak point was. He asked me to trust him, and to give him the knife I was holding, and I…” I took a deep breath, closing my eyes again to escape from Tsukuyomi’s intense gaze, “I made my choice, and gave him the knife. He died a hero.”

“My condolences.” His hand cupped my chin, with his calloused thumb running along my cheek in the same rhythm as Amaterasu’s hand through my hair. “And what reward did your gods offer their savior, Percy?”

“They wanted to make me my dad’s lieutenant.” I was falling asleep on them. I fought against it, and reached up to bat Tsukuyomi’s hand away. “I asked them to promise to make a place for the gods and demigods that hadn’t had one before, and to pardon the ones that had fought with the Titans, and to claim all of their kids instead.”

“They wished to make you a sea god,” the other man said flatly, letting me grab his hand and finally pull him to the bed next to us. “Why did you refuse?”

“Annabeth, mostly. We’d… not talked about us together, exactly, but… I didn’t mind the thought of growing old with her.”

“She is the friend you take pictures of buildings for, correct? What brought you around the world to our arms, instead of hers?”

“Luke loved her. She didn’t feel the same way, but she had a crush on him as a kid, and was pretty guilty about him dying, and felt like she should have saved him. After the battle I just… gave her space, I guess. I never got the words out, and neither did she. She’s an architect, and the gods had put her in charge of rebuilding Olympus as her reward. It was her dream.

“The next time we talked about it, I was rebuilding the _Firefly_. I asked her to come with me, but I was pretty sure she wouldn’t, and I couldn’t blame her for it when I was the one leaving. We’re still good friends, I’d die for her, but everything else just… never happened.” I’d thought Calypso would be my greatest what-if. I’d been wrong.

“And do you regret refusing godhood for a love that never bore fruit?” Amaterasu purred as she leaned over me, cupping my face in her free hand.

“Nah.”

At my casual response both deities stiffened and as she straightened Amaterasu’s next question was almost shrill.   “ _What?_ Why not?”

“It was still worth it. The Titan’s wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without the forgotten demigods and the minor gods’ kids. And the minor gods, too. They all had a lot of good reasons not to like Olympus. If nothing had changed it would just have all happened again. Plus I met Hercules on the way into the Mediterranean- do you know about him?”

“The greatest hero of your people,” Tsukuyomi said, then paused and added “…though he apparently has gained competition. Yes, we know of him. His stories present him as a most intemperate character.”

“Yeah, the guy’s a jerk. But the gods gave him the same deal, and made him a god, and he’s been stuck guarding the Pillars ever since. Our afterlife for heroes is much better. I think I made the right choice.”

“You would be different, though- would have been different,” Amaterasu corrected herself. “You love the sea. And many of the gods of the East were once human. Your friends Hachiman and Guan Gong are among them. You have made yourself welcome wherever you go, unlike Zeus’s child. You would be happy as a sea god.”

“I doubt it. My dad’s married. And they have a son. I only met Amphitrite once, when Oceanus was attacking, but it was pretty clear she didn’t want me around.” I hadn’t thought of her or Triton when I’d considered Zeus’s offer, but after meeting Hercules I’d kind of started wondering what they’d have found for me to do to get me out of Poseidon’s palace long-term.

“I see. Elevating the brilliant son of a favored concubine… civil wars have started over less, it is true. Is she why you refused me?” Amaterasu’s hands began moving again, and I turned slightly, resting my cheek against her lap as I remembered how tired I was.

“Yeah. Her and Dad, Hera and Zeus, Hephaestus and Aphrodite…” I broke off, yawning. “…someone always gets hurt.”

I’d turned them both down separately, and then they’d approached me together at the next new moon. They’d gotten back together after thousands of years apart, and I had no idea why they wanted someone else hanging around even if I had resurrected the goddess they’d split up over. Since no-one was cheating on anyone, though, my only problem had been the birth-control issues. I wasn’t anywhere near ready settle down and raise a kid, and had called in a major favor from the local fertility deity to prevent the possibility.

“Finish your story, Percy.” Tsukuyomi’s voice was low and husky. “What if there was no mortal girl you loved, no duty to the gods who forgot you, no family that would resent your triumph. Would you become a god?”

“No,” I whispered, more than half-asleep. “Too many rules… can’t stay with your kids, can’t interfere with mortals, can’t go where you want… I wouldn’t have met you, or Ryujin, or Guan Yu, or Ganga… wouldn’t have sailed any other oceans… I’d have been trapped.”

Amaterasu’s breath was almost a sob. “Then what do you _want_?”

I stayed quiet for a long moment, letting the question run through my sleep-fogged mind. Was there anything I wanted?

...No.

And that was my answer, wasn’t it?

“For this to go on forever… to go for the horizon… to never stop seeing new places… meeting new people. Stupid, I know…everything ends someday, but…” I yawned one last time, and trailed off, finally giving up the fight against sleep.

“A worthy dream,” Tsukuyomi murmured.

Just before I lost consciousness, I felt a drop on my hair. Saltwater. What…?

“Sleep, Jackson Percy.   Sleep, and dream no more.”

I was asleep before a second tear could fall.

SotWS_SotWS_SotWS_ SotWS_ SotWS_ SotWS_ SotWS

Tsukuyomi rested a hesitant hand on his wife’s shoulder, but the attempt at comfort was cut off by a sharp shake of her head. He let his hand fall to his side, fist balled, and turned his head to at least do her the courtesy of not witnessing her grief.

It had been a profitable interrogation- and there was little point in calling it anything else, for all that Percy had been willing enough to tell them his history. The gentle manipulation of the Mist was simple enough to throw off, if one tried, and likely had not been necessary to ensure he spoke the truth; but Percy, when asked to tell them of his battle with the Yamata-no-Orochi , had said ‘I shot it, then cut off the heads until it stopped moving. It was bigger than I thought it would be, but at least they didn’t grow back.’

They had needed a little more detail this time.

“So now we know why they laughed.”

They had forced him to speak. They could not blame Percy if they had not liked the truths they had received.

Amaterasu did not respond, and they sat frozen in that tableau- him on one side of the bed, her on the other, and their obstinately mortal lover between them with his head in her lap and his hand in Tsukuyomi’s. Outside, the sky began to lighten.

“Good morning, my lady! Time to rise and-um.” Ame-no-Uzume, goddess of laughter and the dawn and Amaterasu’s own personal wake-up-call, paused in mid-air at the open entrance to the garden and took in the scene. “…shine…should I come back later?”

Amaterasu moved Percy’s head to a pillow and rose without a word, shifting the remainder of her formal clothes into the white, red, and gold flowing robes she favored for everyday wear. Tsukuyomi fell into place behind her shoulder as she left the room through the opposite entrance.

“Seems like Ryujin’s little fish is a bigger catch than he thought.” Their brother gave them a sharp grin from where he leaned halfway down the hall, still in his suit. He had clearly heard everything.

“So it appears,” Tsukuyomi replied dryly. Amaterasu ignored them both and continued down the hallway.

“They’re going to summon him back, and like they said, he’s loyal to his kin. That’s admirable. Stupid, but admirable. And it sounds like true love wasn’t enough to nail his feet to the ground, so you’re out of luck there.” Susano’o straightened, putting him directly in their sister’s path.

“ _Move._ ” The hissed order was accompanied by a flare of gold from her eyes. “Today of all days, brother, I have no patience for your mockery.”

“He’s loyal to his family.” His smile gentled, becoming almost sympathetic, and he stepped aside. As they passed each other, he reached out, and brushed his hand against her stomach. “Give him one.”

She froze in mid-step. Tsukuyomi deeply wished he could see her face as the suggestion penetrated. Her voice was expressionless as she finally answered, “I gave my word.”

“He asked you for it? He’s a ballsy guy. Still,” and he paused next to Tsukuyomi and glanced at her ramrod-straight back, “all’s fair in love and war.”

A heartbeat, and then one more, and she disappeared in a flash of brilliant light, without even attempting to flee by foot.

“It would be both, eventually,” Tsukuyomi murmured. “Must you always stir the waves?”

“They could be bluffing,” the storm god pointed out. “He’s just one demigod. It took them three years to even notice he was gone.”

“They fought each other for a decade over an apple.”

Susano’o shrugged, conceding the point. As Tsukuyomi turned away from him, though, he said quietly, “He brings you together. We’ll fight if you need us to.”

His younger brother disappeared before he could respond to the rare gesture of affection.

Tsukuyomi sighed and went to his own quarters across the hall, next to Amaterasu’s- and how many centuries had it been since he and his wife shared a palace? He removed his decorative armor by hand, taking comfort in the familiar ritual, and then returned to Percy’s room rather than retire to his own futon. He stood by the bed, looking down at the enigma they had allowed into their bed and lives.

He had been intrigued by the exotic demigod who had asked only to be given the freedom of their territory, and who appeared to consider rewriting the ending of the greatest tragedy of their court to be a fair price. The young man would be joining the sea dragons when Ryujin had his way, and so Amaterasu had made it clear that both the usual guidelines concerning mortal demigods and her own dislike of the West did not apply. Percy had preferred the independence of his ship to the offered guest quarters in the Palace of the Sun, but had been invited to the court activities and chose to split his time between the mortal islands, Ryujin’s realm, and the Plains of Heaven.

Three weeks had been long enough to determine that his experience hunting the monsters of the West stood him in good stead with their _mononoke;_ that he was no more talented on the Japanese bow than he was with his native style of archery; that he could out-sail even their water gods; and that he fled from poetry competitions even after being assured that they would not expect a foreigner to participate.

It had also been long enough for Tsukuyomi to be sure that the mortal’s gaze held an appreciation that would not be present if Percy adhered solely to the fairer sex, and he had offered to introduce Percy to the spirits of the lakes around Mt. Fiji. It had been an enjoyable day, but the suggestion that they retire to one of the local hot springs resorts for the night had resulted only in a stammered rejection and the distinct impression that the black winged horse was laughing at him.

_“Um, thanks, and… I’m flattered, really, but. Well. You’re married, and I’m not going to help anyone cheat on anyone, and it would be awkward. Really, really awkward, ‘cause… never mind.”_

The woods had had ears; he blamed Inari. But the result of the gossip had been a peace offering from his estranged wife that he had not dared hope for even after Uke Mochi’s resurrection, for Amaterasu could hold a grudge like no other. She had sought him out and they had had their first civil conversation since that fatal feast, and the man who had rejected them both for the sake of the other had cheerfully accepted them together.

His only condition had been that no child would result from the relationship, on Amaterasu’s word of honor. It was clear, in hindsight, that it had not been the first time he had demanded concessions from gods.

_“I will have his company in the nights, and you the days. Do you agree, husband?”_

_“As you wish, sister.”_

Percy had surged past those restrictions without ever noticing they existed two days later, when Tsukuyomi had accepted an invitation to spend the day on the _Firefly_ and Percy had barged into the weaving-room to include Amaterasu in their plans. Whether it had been Percy’s crooked grin or Tsukuyomi’s silent challenge that led her to accept, he doubted even she knew, but she had agreed in the sight of all her attendants. Later, after Tsukuyomi had allowed himself to be piled into the too-small hammock and Percy had offered her a hand to join them, she had placed hers in his, and let herself be pulled across both their laps.

Tsukuyomi had long since forgotten how to reach out and Amaterasu had never learned, but Percy had bridged the gap between them without trying, or ever even acknowledging that it still was present. Perhaps it was the cultural differences; the occasional bouts of icy politeness that would have had any member of their pantheon retreating in terror, he had not appeared to consider any more significant than their customary formality. But it was easy, so easy, to imagine the scene he had described - Percy in front of that arc of thrones, demanding that the greatest gods of his civilization become better people. He had done the same to the two of them, simply by assuming they had already become better than they were.

_‘Spring turns to summer_

_The sun draws from barren ground_

_A purple iris.’_

Three months had passed, and the poetry of the court took on certain inevitable themes- day and night coming together at dusk, flowers blooming in the rain after a long drought, and one particularly memorable contribution from Susano’o concerning western sausages **.** Then Percy had sailed to China and they let him leave, for Ryujin had intended to have the approval of all three courts stamped on the treaty proposal he gave to the Western sea god. Rather than allow the dalliance to fade as Percy had clearly expected, though, they had dropped by the ship, singly and together, in the quiet days sailing along the coast between destinations and when he was not being hounded by Guan Gong.

He had faced Chi You with the wry humor that befit a mortal capable of defeating Ravana, and they had not considered that he might have offered to aid the Hindu gods with the same poise; they had not wondered what other forges had tempered the new sword in their hand until today, when they saw the growing fury in the eyes of the Olympians as they understood that the hero who had once been their prophesized savior had gladly left them behind.

“What more do they wish of you, Percy? What else are you to them, that they would threaten war so easily?” He sat on the bed next to Percy, drawing him into his arms and staring out towards the still-open door to the garden, where the sky showed that his wife had begun her daily journey.

It took no divination to see the paths that stretched before them now. In the first, Percy would waken in a few hours with only vague memories of the conversation before dawn. The court would continue with his birthday celebration as planned, save only for Ryujin’s gift of godhood. Percy would sail away as he had intended, and they would let him go gracefully and without saying a word. His genuine ignorance would hopefully protect him from the slighted Olympians, who would then shorten his leash but do nothing worse. And he and his wife would be left without the sarcastic, irreverent Greek who had somehow become the central strand of the braid that wove them together.

In the second, Amaterasu followed their brother’s suggestion. Percy recognized the flaws of his divine family even as he defended them, and had at every step of their relationship done his best to ensure that he did not repeat their errors. When Amaterasu made the child immortal and kept it with her, he would applaud her choice and refuse to allow his son or daughter grow up without their father as Poseidon had done with him. The infant would tie him to them as his love for them did not, and the steady compass of his loyalty would flip from West to East. If his family was willing to declare war to see him returned, Percy would accept Ryujin’s offer- not to form a bloodless peace between the oceans, as the dragon lord had planned, but to defend the border against the invaders who wished to separate him from his child. He would make a magnificent god.

The Chinese gods would stand with them. The memories of the Sino-Japanese wars were recent enough for the Jade Emperor to have little affection for their pantheon, but Guan Gong was well respected and the defeat of Chi You had gained Percy support among the Heavenly Bureaucracy. More, the high-handed way the Olympians had demanded the return of a demigod their courts had decided to keep would rankle.

The Hindu pantheon would stand with them. Percy had made friends on his way around the subcontinent, and the Hindu and Shinto deities had worked together to throw off the creeping influence of the West after the second World War; Vishnu and Shiva would remember. The Persians, the tribal gods of lower Africa, and the pantheons of the rest of Asia and Polynesia would join them for the same reason- a war over a single demigod would be seen as just an excuse for one more Olympian power-grab.

The near-forgotten gods of Egypt had recently stirred against an internal problem, and then retreated from the world once more. The ancient gods of Mesopotamia were just as lethargic. Both pantheons had fallen so far that human societies had been able to keep them contained for millennia; they could be discounted.

It would become a third World War, and the last one had cost them dearly. Honor, reason, and the good of their people said they should choose the first path.

Laughing green eyes, an outstretched hand, and a thousand stolen hours on a ship soaring through the waves demanded the second.

Gods were, at the core, very selfish creatures.

“Stay with us, Percy.” The man in his arms stirred slightly at the promise whispered into his ear. “Only choose to stay, and we will burn the world to keep you.”

SotWS_SotWS_SotWS_ SotWS_ SotWS_ SotWS_

**Notes:**

In case it wasn’t clear, Percy was stoned on Mist, to greater and lesser degrees, through most of his conversation with the two gods. He would otherwise have noticed that they weren’t exactly talking about the Olympian offer any more, and would have eventually wondered why they were suddenly so interested when they really hadn’t cared about his past before.

Also, he knows they love him. He loves them too; they’ve been in a relationship for more than a year. But Poseidon loved Sally. They’re married and immortal, and he’s the mortal son of a foreign god. He knows they love him, but he doesn’t know they’d thought they could keep him. On their side, although they do love him, it’s also that they are both extremely proud, and their marriage was shattered. No one is sure their relationship can function anymore without Percy as a buffer, and it didn’t occur to Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi that they might have to find out. (Please note that I am in no way saying this is _healthy._ ) Avoiding his family’s mistakes only means Percy’s made brand new ones.

 

 **Sidi Chamarouch** \- I wasn’t able to find much information on the original gods of the North African Berber tribes, and what little there was talked about how they had been syncretized with Greek, Roman, Egyptian, or Carthaginian gods. In-story, most of them faded long ago. Sidi Chamarouch is a mountain spirit believed to be the king of the djinn in the local folklore of the High Atlas Mountains, and is a relatively benevolent figure that is called on to help exorcise evil spirits. He has a shrine in the village named after him.

In Islamic mythology, djinn are to fire what humans are to clay. In terms of power level, Percy was right to be wary; Chamarouch is roughly on par with Achelous, and Percy was on top of a mountain rather than near the ocean. Djinn are very long-lived but not immortal, have their own societies and rulers, are not bound to any object unless a human sorcerer has trapped them to one, and have free will. Many of them are Muslim. Rather than ignore that part of the mythology, I tried to come up with a possible reason why a species that knew that little-g gods existed might pray to the ‘metaphysical’ God of the Abrahamic religions.

 **Iles Purpuraires** \- A group of small islands offshore of the city of Essaouira, and conveniently at roughly the same latitude as the tallest mountain in the Maghreb. The islands were settled by the Phoenicians and eventually the Romans, who made purple dye from the local snails. Mogador, the largest island, is a protected falcon sanctuary and Percy was illegally trespassing.

 **The Koschei:** Koschei the Deathless, a Russian sorcerer who does pretty much what Percy summarized. His life/heart/soul is hidden in an egg, inside a duck, inside a hare, inside of a locked chest at the top of (or under the roots of) a tall tree on a hidden island. He is killed by a Russian prince who is kind to various animals that return the favor by helping him catch the soul containers.

 **General Douglas MacArthur:** The Allied supreme commander of the Southwest Pacific arena, and the man who accepted Japan’s surrender in WWII. His father was a Lt. General and had been awarded a Medal of Honor, the highest military honor in the United States; Arthur and Douglas MacArthur were the first parent-child pair (of only two) to have both gotten that award. MacArthur Jr. is a polarizing figure, and I was strongly tempted to make him a son of Ares because he advocated nuking China during his command in the Korean Wear, but given his family history I decided to hook MacArthur Sr. up with Athena.

 **Ame-no-Uzume:** The plump, good-natured goddess of laughter and the one who did the striptease that brought Amaterasu out of her cave and the sun back to the world (see the notes for chapter 1). She apparently became the goddess of the dawn because of it, and my headcannon has her waking Amaterasu up every day. And, yes, Amaterasu got tired of the ‘rise and shine’ joke about a dozen centuries ago.

 **Inari:** A god/goddess of rice (and sake), agriculture, industry, prosperity, and fertility; his/her sacred animal is the fox, and the Japanese fox spirits, _kitsune_ , have a similar relationship to Inari as the satyrs do to Dionysus. His/her gender depends pretty much on the legend and the region of worship; in-story I’m interpreting this to mean that s/he takes the ‘deities look like what they want to’ thing to the logical extreme. In some versions of Uke Mochi’s legend, Inari was Uke Mochi’s husband and took over her job after Tsukuyomi killed her, which is why s/he’s got the agricultural deity gig. And, in-story, a major grudge against Tsukuyomi.

 **‘A purple iris’:** According to Wikipedia’s Hanakotoba page, an iris represents good news and glad tidings in the Japanese language of flowers.

 **Gods of Egypt and Mesopotamia:** The ‘human societies’ is a deliberate reference to the Kane Chronicles; I’m going with the idea that there’s something similar happening with the gods of ancient Mesopotamia (old Persia, current-day Iraq).


End file.
